


come a little closer

by lowtides



Series: come on, come on, come on [1]
Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Drama, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Smut, F/M, Mutual Pining, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, at this point i just invented a place in Hope County to force them to be stuck with each other, description of dep kept super vague for all your self-insert needs, get ready for that slow burn baby!, gratuitous oc canon fodder, not so much friends but more of an Oh I Guess I Won't Kill You Right Now, so much drama oh my god
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-06-15 15:25:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 110,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15415944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lowtides/pseuds/lowtides
Summary: After a half-cocked plan to get some intel on Eden's Gate, Rook finds herself trapped in the dark with Jacob fucking Seed. Great, just great.





	1. Chapter 1

Rook shudders as a cool breeze passes through the grass, where she lay peering through the scope of her rifle. She remembered it warm when she first arrived in Hope County. Not _warm_ but she could at least run around in just a layer of flannel if she wanted to—a light jacket if she decided to stay in the mountains for long—but it’s been a while since this all-out war between Eden’s Gate and the Resistance started. It's cold enough that she can see her breath, that she'd rather avoid the mountains.

But she can’t. Especially now that it's only going to get colder from here, she doesn't know if the people Jacob captures are still put in those cages outdoors, but she can’t just ditch the mountains because it's cold. Especially when those people in his cages are probably freezing.

A couple months in Hope County, and what does Rook have to show for it? Squat. Well, that’s not true. She came really close to killing John once, but that slimy well-dressed bastard managed to weasel his way out of the situation with an escort of armored trucks carting his near-death ass off to Joseph’s Compound. With his absence in Holland Valley while he recovered, Rook was able to break Hudson out of his bunker. They left the place trashed, but to Rook’s dismay not outright destroyed.

At least she got Joey out, though. And thankfully Joey was in one piece.

Rook knows the Marshal—Burke—was stuck somewhere in Faith’s clutches, but after a quick trip to scope out the region and finding all that bliss-hallucinatory shit she decided to focus on Jacob’s region instead. She hardly knew Burke (whose hotshot attitude, in her opinion, was what got them all knee-deep into this cult shit in the first place), so while she did plan to save him, she’d prioritize Pratt first. There may be some fucked up classical conditioning going on but at least there’s a _trigger_ , unlike the Bliss being practically _everywhere_ in the Henbane.

_Only You_ by the Platters, warping her mind into some fucked up training sequence? The song’s ruined for her forever, but at least it’s somewhat avoidable if she doesn’t take a Bliss arrow to the knee.

Faith Seed’s giggly _Welcome to the Bliss_ as Rook constantly hallucinates her and jumps off a cliff without her parachute? The Bliss contaminating the water in the Henbane? Saving a civilian on the side of the road but it turns out to be a skunk, spraying its stench all over her while Sharky laughs at her bad luck? No thanks, Rook will deal with that some other time. She’d rather Sharky laugh at her in an environment _without_ some crazy hallucinogen.

Sorry Burke, Staci’s first on the list.

Staci’s always been kind of a douche, but he was still her colleague and her sort-of friend. He didn’t seem to be so much of a douche anymore, though. Not after the last time Rook saw him—following Jacob Seed around like a broken, lost puppy. She has to get him out of there.

“Dep, I got eyes on a bunch of Peggie shitheads coming from the North,” Nick’s voice crackles through the static of her radio.

Next to her, Grace turns her scope a little more to the left, gaining a better view. “I see them pulling in now. A familiar fucking redhead in the lead truck.”

“I hate this plan,” Nick mutters in the sky, “but looks like you were right, Deputy.”

Rook follows Grace in suit with her scope. Clear as day, Jacob fucking Seed is driving the truck leading the convoy. If Staci’s with him, he’s not in the same vehicle.

Rook sucks in a breath, trigger finger itching. She can try to snipe him here, it would be so easy. Hell, with Grace here, Grace can do it herself. Nick can drop a bomb—no. As tempting as it is, they have a plan today. Not only will whatever she learns today help the Resistance, but she also can’t just kill Jacob with no knowledge of how to help Staci.

“Okay, shit, here I go then.” Rook stands, patting the dirt off her jeans. She glances at Grace and holds the button on her radio so Nick can hear her too. “You guys know what to do.”

Grace nods, brow raised in skepticism. “You really sure about this?”

Rook nods back, watching her breath puff and fade in the air. “The less chaos, the better.”

“I hate this.” She imagines Nick’s pout. “You better fuckin’ come back from this. I won’t have my kid growing up godmotherless! Or worse! Peggie! Jesus, Dep, what if you end up getting converted during all this? Shit, that would be even worse! My best friend and Godmother of my kid ain’t gonna be no fuckin’ Peggie!”

“It’s gonna be fine, Nick,” Rook smiles, thinking of the newest addition to the Rye family.

“It better be! Kim’ll kill me otherwise.”

“I’ll see you guys on the other side.” Rook gives Grace a lazy salute and skids off the hillside.

 

-

 

About 100 meters away from where she left Grace, Rook takes out two of Jacob’s Peggies by the outskirts of the site. A man and a woman. She hauls the man aside, dragging his body into the bushes, picking off the $12 ( _nice_ ) she found in his coat pocket.

“That’s going into the seaplane fund,” she murmurs to herself.

Rook examines the dead Peggie woman next, pulling the throwing knife out of her bloody throat. She wipes the blood off on the woman’s pants, face curled in a small grimace of disgust. A small thought pulls at her—an underlying guilt of how she no longer feels disgust for killing, but for how she got blood all over the small handle of the knife as well.

She shelves that crisis of morality away, for later. Whenever later was.

Rook takes the woman’s jacket and zips it up over her own red flannel and jacket. It’s got the Eden’s Gate symbol emblazoned on the front, as large and obnoxious as John Seed’s ego. The material that grazes her neck and the top of her hands is scratchy and smells from use. She wrinkles her nose. The least Eden’s Gate could do is preach basic hygiene to their flock.

She takes the woman’s black boots—just about half a size bigger than her own feet—and slips them on. She takes the woman’s coat next, slipping it onto her shoulders. It doesn’t smell too bad compared to the jacket. She throws the hood the of the jacket over her head and hopes she doesn’t get lice.

“Looking good, Deputy.” Grace’s husky voice remarks over the radio.

Rook shoots a sour face west, hoping Grace sees it through her scope. “Shut up, I’m going in.”

She drops the woman’s slightly undressed body into the bushes next to the dead man and grapples up the rocks.

The first thing she sees is a massive cave entrance. From the rubble around the place, it seems that it was newly discovered thanks to dynamite. There are old tracks lining the entrance, and what looks to be even older foundations on the inside. Was this an old mine? She’d have to go inside for a better look.

The area is busy. Jacob’s soldiers fly around from place to place, moving crates of who knows what, caged judges, and Bliss containers. One of Jacob’s Chosen spot her standing around and orders her to _stop wasting time and move the cargo!_ Her eyes follow where he pointed her to, a heavy-looking crate with _YOU ARE MEAT_ painted on it. Her stomach churns sickly.

Silently and obediently, she walks over to it and hefts it up. It’s as heavy as she thought it was but her muscles still strain. She clenches her teeth, refusing to show any kind of weakness that’ll out her—or worse, have someone bring out the music box.

Eden’s Gate is setting up for something here. In an old mine. For what? That’s what she came to find out. She found out about the place a few days ago, when she heard some people at Baron Lumber Mill talking about explosions being heard Northeast of the area. When Rook discovered the large presence of Peggies in that area, she would have just wiped them out or called the Whitetails. But something was off about it. They looked like they planned to build, and she wanted to know what.

If she finds out, not only would the Resistance be able to shut it down, but also gain intel on the Gate’s future plans of expansion. It would help predict what they plan to do next, instead of just finding out what they’ve done when they’ve done it. It would be one step ahead.

Now she just has to learn what the _fuck_ is going on here.

Rook drops the crate off at the mouth of the cave, tensing when she hears a familiar voice echoing off the walls.

“If we follow the tracks here, we’ll find the door,” Jacob’s voice is soft as he briefs his soldiers, but nobody else in the vicinity speaks. His presence itself makes his words loud.

Rook picked up a clipboard and paper near some of the crates, her eyes glazed over it as she pretended to read the inventory list, shuffling closer to hear what he was saying, her eyes occasionally flitting up to get a good look.

He’s clad in a dark green jacket, the same color as the fatigues Hope County usually sees him wear, with the symbol of Eden’s Gate patched on his bicep. The angry splotches of scarring hidden under the long sleeves. It’s not a full on coat like what the other Peggies wear, but it looks warm enough, the collar popped to stop wind from chilling his neck. His signature red sniper rifle is perched on his back, the strap disappearing over his shoulder.

Jacob leans over a table with what Rook could only guess had blueprints scattered on it, his dog tags dangling from his neck. One hand grips the side of the table as he leans, while the other jumps around animatedly, pointing to one spot on the blueprints, then another, then another.

“I want the tunnel here reinforced, we can build on whatever scaffolding is already there.” As he talks, she inches closer, trying to get a good look at the blueprints. They’re either digging down for something, or building another bunker. Maybe both.

A Chosen and Judge brush past Rook, and she promptly drops her head into the clipboard, feigning concentration.

“Sir,” begins the Chosen, standing rigidly with this hands clasped behind his back.

Jacob’s icy blue eyes flash, not happy with being interrupted. “Go on.”

“We’ve captured a Whitetail spying on us nearby.” _Shit._

“Good. Take ‘em to Grand View.”

“She said… She said she wanted to speak with you, Sir.”

Jacob raised a brow, head tilting curiously. “Let’s indulge her then, I’m feeling nice today. Bring her up here.”

Rook stands frozen on the spot. Why does the Whitetail wanna talk to him? Goddammit, this makes this harder for her. Rook has to be way more careful now. If the Whitetail shows even a _hint_ of recognition when she spots Rook, someone’s bound to notice.

The Whitetail is thrown to the ground in front of Jacob moments later, looking pretty fucked up with her hands bound behind her back. The camo vest she wears is smeared with blood and mud, and her Cheeseburger cap has fallen off her head, dangling off her ponytail where the strap loops around the scrunchie.

She doesn’t look scared, nor does she angry. She looks _smug_.

Jacob takes one slow, menacing step forward and lowers himself. Squatting down so he can be right above her. Rook notices the shift in his posture, his energy. Around his men, he was intimidating, commanding, the alpha dog. But now around this Whitetail he’s just the way Rook remembers first meeting him at Grand View Hotel. Sans the contrasting lighting of the projection room from his presentation, he’s still able to pull off this threatening night creature movement in broad daylight.

“Something you wanna share with the class?”

The Whitetail spits at his face, but the bloody mess of it falls short and lands on his faded denim-clad knee instead.

Her voice is hoarse. “I know I’m dead. I’d rather be, than become one of _your_ _soldiers_ , you sick fuck. I just wanted to see the look on all your faces when they push the button.”

The silence becomes heavy when her words soak in. The Whitetail’s eyes roam the expanse of the cave mouth, her eyes falling on the equipment and cargo strewn about, on the Peggies in front of her, on Jacob Seed’s smirk dropping into a grim scowl, on Rook—who averts her eyes maybe a second too late.

Rook’s head spins. _The Whitetails knew. They were keeping it just as secret as I was._ Rook’s here for nothing, then. They’re blowing the place up. She’s gotta get out of here. She felt her stomach drop. _Fuck. Grace might be too close to this too. I have to warn her._

“Fuck it,” Rook mutters and starts to stride out of the cave, dropping the clipboard the crate she had carried in there herself. Her hand is already in her coat pocket, ready to radio Grace and Nick to get the hell out of dodge. Or better yet, radio Eli to ask him _what the fuck_ —

Someone grabs Rook by the shoulders and spins her around roughly, slamming her into the stack of crates. Her vision blanks out for a moment as the back of her head collides with the crate hard. Blinking hard, she faintly realizes that her hood has fallen off.

“Well well well, we’ve got a little deputy spy in our midst.” Jacob drawls, the casual tone of voice contrasting the sneer on his scarred features. So he had noticed the Whitetail looking at her. Rook struggles in his grasp but freezes when she feels something cold on her throat. Her eyes travel down to the knife at her neck then back up at Jacob’s face.

“Thought knives were your brother’s thing,” Rook breathes.

“You’re in for a rough surprise, then.” The cold tip of the knife trails lightly along her jawline.

“Sounds fun,” Rook deadpans.

“Didn’t take you for a suicide bomber. Where’s the detonator?” His voice is even, but the demand is clear. His eyes scan her face, she feels like those searing blue eyes would melt her face off. Tilting her chin up slightly with the knife, with his free hand he digs into the pocket her hand is still in, rough fingers brushing her own calloused hands. She releases the radio and yanks her hand out of the pocket like she’s been burned.

He pulls the radio out of her pocket, checks it over once and tosses it to the ground with a displeased grunt. The clatter of the radio tumbling on the floor feels like the loudest sound in the cave.

“It’s not me,” says Rook. When Jacob looks back down at her, his beard brushes her cheek and she catches a light scent of soap and something like woodsmoke. “I don’t have it.”

“Thought you were smarter than to lie with the tip of a blade on your pretty neck.” Jacob presses the knife harder and Rook feels something warm rolling down her neck.

Rook opens her mouth to speak, but the Whitetail interrupts. “She doesn’t know. Dep wasn’t supposed to be here—she wasn’t in on it.”

The Whitetail looks at her almost apologetically, Rook can’t quite tell with how fucked up her face is. The purple-blue of the Whitetail’s wet, swelling right eye twitches in what might be an _i’m sorry you’ll die here too_ expression, if such a facial expression could ever be that specific.

Somewhere outside, Rook hears the distant shouts of alarm from Jacob’s soldiers and barking of the Judges. The Judge in the cave with them growls, agitated. The Chosen who brought the Whitetail in commands it to relax, but it's restless, barking and snapping its teeth, and it runs outside.

“Shit,” Jacob says quietly, to himself but Rook is close enough to not only hear it but feel his breath sweep across her eyelids. He looks at the Chosen. “Tell everyone to evacuate. Now!”

The Chosen starts blaring orders into his radio while the other Peggies look ready to leave, but await Jacob’s call.

Rook doesn’t dare move, not with the knife already drawing blood. “Give me the radio. I can try to get Eli to call it off before—”

The blast cuts her off.

The cave _shakes_ , smoke and debris from the initial explosion scatter in the air right at the lip of the cave above them. Everyone jolts at the impact, Jacob adjusts his footing as the ground shakes, and Rook feels the knife leave her neck. She takes the opportunity to kick Jacob in the abdomen, but he’s a big guy and only takes a step back from the impact with a grunt. She drops down and scrambles for her fallen radio at his feet.

“Grace get out of here, _now!_ ” Rook shouts into the receiver.

Jacob’s soldiers are running out of the cave, and the Whitetail is just _laughing_. A delirious, mirthless sound racking her body as she lay on the ground. Rook hears the familiar blare of an alarm siren sounding through the area. She thinks _move, move!_ but she stays where she is, her body refusing to work with her thoughts.

Jacob’s moving too, deciding to leave the Deputy and Whitetail to their fates as he follows after his men. The opening of the cave begins to crumble. Rook’s vaguely aware of Grace’s voice crackling in through the radio in her hand, whatever she says is drowned out by the cacophony of debris dropping down and crushing the Peggies who are escaping.

Some of them make it out, rushing out before the rocks blocked off the entrance. Fallen boulders and rubble block the entrance, and the few Peggies that are left try to climb over it. Jacob halts. He backs up.

“Stop—” He barks out that them, but it’s too late. Rocks rain down on them, this time Rook hears their bones crush and their bodies crunch and twist.

The rocks stop falling.

It’s dead silent for a moment. Rook watches as Jacob draws his handgun and lumbers towards one of his soldiers who are still alive. The soldier’s body is lost under the pile of rocks, he’s mewling, breathing hard through the pain. His one free hand pushes uselessly at the rocks on him. When he sees Jacob, gun in hand, he stops trying.

“C-Cull the herd,” says the soldier, so quiet Rook almost missed it.

Jacob puts him out of his misery, Rook can’t help but flinch at the gunshot piercing through the quiet.

The Whitetail wheezes, still on the ground. She looks at Rook.

“I’m sorry, Deputy, sorry you had to die for this too.”

Rook steels her gaze. “We’re not dead yet.”

Jacob turns around slowly, sunlight creeping in through the cracks between the debris makes his hair look like it’s aflame. He raises his gun.

Another gunshot echoes in the gave, and the Whitetail is limp in front of Rook with a bullet in her head. Blood runs down her hair. A fresh spatter of blood and brains stains the Cheeseburger cap.

Rook releases a shuddering breath.

Jacob points his gun at Rook, with what little sunlight there is shines against him, his face is in the dark. Her fingers twitch, hand slowly creeping towards her own sidearm.

Then the sound of loosening rocks cause both of them to look up. A gaping crack snakes its way down the middle of the cave ceiling.

“Run!” Rook shouts (to who, even? Definitely not _Jacob fucking Seed_ ). She leaves the Whitetail’s dead boy in the dust just as a large fragment of the ceiling lands in her place.

She books it further into the cave, god knows where. This was a mine once, wasn’t it? She looks at the ground, and sure enough there are fragments of tracks left, and she follows them until the sound of collapsing rock has stopped.

Rook stops and catches her breath, she can feel her chest heaving—her own heartbeat thundering in her ears from adrenaline. It’s dark, the complete cave-in blocks out whatever light her eyes were hanging onto before.

_Okay, just trapped in a cave. No big deal. I’ll be fine. I can find a way out of this. Or die. Nope. Fuck. Dying doesn’t sound great. I’ll find a way out of here._

She puts the radio she’d been white-knuckling steadily on the ground—no, her hands weren’t shaking. She’s fine. This is gonna be fine. She feels like she’s burning. She slips her rifle strap off and sets it on the ground near her too. Removing the Peggie coat, she tosses it to the ground away from her, and discards the Peggie jacket next.

Now that she’s without the extra layers of Pretend Peggie and back in her jacket and flannel she picks up her things, slinging her rifle back around and attaching the radio to her belt. She takes out her flashlight and switches it on, her breathing finally calming.

The tunnel seems to go on, and Rook stills as she hears another set of breaths that aren’t her own. Slowly, dread creeping up her toes, she turns on her heel and shines the light in the direction of the sound.

A few feet away from her, flushed from running and squinting at the flashlight, is Jacob Seed glaring at her.

_Well, shit._

“God, I was hoping you died,” is all Rook can say.

“Tough shit.” He gestures at her flashlight. “Got another one of those?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes i totally did make up an entire area/mine somewhere northeast of baron lumber mill for my own fic, whoops


	2. Chapter 2

Rook pulls out her handgun in a flash, pointing it straight at Jacob. His own gun is still in his hands but rests pointing down. He doesn’t tense at the weapon pointed to his face.

“You gonna go ahead and kill me, or what?” he asks, almost casual.

“Why—why aren’t you trying to kill me?”

“Thought about it. Could’ve shot you just now when you were getting rid of all that shit.” He gestures with his gun at the discarded Peggie clothing pooled on the ground.

Rook says nothing, her gun doesn’t waver.

After a beat, Jacob lets out an exasperated sigh. “Do I have to spell everything out? If I kill you, I’m trapped here alone. Now I _could_ find a way out myself, but I know you’re more than capable so—” He taps at his temple. “—two heads are better than one and all that shit.”

He has a point. Being stuck with Jacob Seed, a crazy militant asshole who turns people’s heads inside out is already a shitty, shitty situation—but would she rather be lost in here all by herself?

She grips the gun tighter. “I could just kill you now.”

“Go on, then.”

Rook wants to pull the trigger. She’s _going_ to pull the trigger.

“Come _on_ , Deputy,” Jacob goads.

She sighs and lowers the gun. “You fucking asshole.”

Jacob puts his gun away, the asshole’s confident no harm will come to him. And he’s right. For now. _Fuck._ If she’s gonna work with him, she needs to make sure of one thing. The goddamn Platters. A distorted echo of _Only You_ haunts her head at the passing thought of it.

“Give me the music box.”

Jacob doesn’t move. She raises her gun again.

“Give me the _fucking_ music box, or I put a bullet between your eyes. I know you have it on you.”

Icy blue eyes search her face, most likely looking for any sign of hesitance. He sighs and slowly reaches inside his jacket. When he draws his hand out, the music box is in it. He extends it out to her. His face— _Is that… a pout? I’m fucking seeing things._

She reaches forward and snatches it out of his hand before he can try any shit. She considers the box for second and drops it onto the ground. Keeping her gun leveled at Jacob, she steps on the box—stomping once, twice, eight times hearing discordant notes twang and crunch on each other until she’s sure the box is nothing but broken pieces.

“That wasn’t very nice.”

“Fuck you.”

She puts her gun away.

He rolls his eyes. “So. Now that we’re _pals_ , you got another flashlight on you?”

Rook glares at him for a second, then produces another flashlight from her things. Sharky always forgets to carry a flashlight, so naturally, Rook has learned to always keep an extra on her for him.

“We’re not _pals_ ,” she grumbles, tossing the light at him.

He catches it mid-air and snorts at her reply. When he looks down to look for the switch, Rook surges forward, sending her fist upwards at his jaw. She never used to be a heavy-hitter, but that’s one of the many things that have changed about Rook since arriving in Hope County.

Jacob’s face snaps to the side at the force of the hit. She moves to hit again, but this time he catches her by the wrist and shakes her off. They’re both breathing heavily, but neither of them move, squinting over the light from Rook’s flashlight. His beard covers the part of the jaw she hit, so she can’t tell if it’s bruised, but from the way he grinds his jaw she knows she got him good.

“You done?” He grits out, his fingers clench around her wrist hard. _That’s gonna bruise._ The glare of her flashlight cast beneath his face makes all the scarring look harsher, with how close she is she can see every mangled crater scattered across his cheekbones and the dark, dark circles around his eyes.

_Don’t just STARE, idiot._ Rook tears her eyes away from his face, somehow feeling traitorous.

“That was for Pratt,” she hisses, stepping back and shaking his hand off her wrist.

“Honey, if we’re gonna throw punches for shit like that, then you deserve _a lot_ more than just a punch,” He sneers back. “For how much you fucked John up, you deserve a slow, slow death.”

“When we get out of here, I’m killing you.”

“I’d love to see you try.”

They stand there glaring at each other, neither of them moving, the tension almost _daring_ one of them to start another fight. Then Jacob scoffs and shakes his head. He twists the handle of his borrowed flashlight and the light clicks on. He points it down the tunnel and strolls away, idly rubbing at his jaw.

 

-

 

“Grace, Nick, come in. Can you hear me?” Rook lets go of the button on her radio, waiting for a reply. Nothing. She tries again. “Hello, can you guys hear me? Anyone? Sharky? Jess?”

She tries the Whitetails next. Then Dutch. Then Fall’s End. Then Hope County Jail. Nothing. She tries again.

“GIve it a fucking rest,” Jacob complains. “No one’s gonna find us down here. You’ve been trying that shit for half an hour.”

Rook sighs and puts her radio back on her belt. It feels like dead-weight. “It’s like this tunnel doesn’t _end_.”

“This place was a mine that never finished its construction, we’ll find something—leftover dynamite, supplies, something.”

“Why were you even building a new bunker? I thought you Seeds were ready for your so-called Collapse.”

“We _are_ ,” Jacob says, lightly kicking aside a loose stone in his path as they walked. “The bunker was for the animals. Joseph had a vision, he said saving other species besides our own, besides just my Judges and whatever handful of farm animals John wanted to keep, was vital to how we would rebuild after The Collapse. He called it Bunker Noah—though that’s not happening anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Let’s see, our only location left to build a bunker’s collapsed in on itself, oh and, you were playing dress up looking in on our plans. Even if we do find somewhere else to build, you and the Whitetails would already know. Your people would blow it all to hell.”

“I wouldn’t kill all those animals, though.”

“But you’d kill my people?”

“Well…”

“Figures.”

“Well maybe I _wouldn’t_ want to go anywhere near that bunker with all those animals in there. That bunker sounds like it would smell worse than your Peggies already do.”

“ _What?_ ” Jacob stops walking.

“Train your soldiers to shower regularly, is all I’m saying,” Rook drawls, shouldering past him.

Jacob doesn’t respond, just makes a low, indignant sound behind her and continues walking again.

 

-

 

“Oh,” Rook says softly, after about another half hour of walking..

“Huh,” says Jacob.

The fragmented tracks they follow down the tunnel end just a foot from where Rook stands. A bit of the tracks stick out into open air as the cave flooring cascades down along the rocky walls.

“Nowhere to go but down,” says Rook, clipping her flashlight onto her jacket. The telltale sound of a hard-plastic click behind her tells Rook that Jacob’s done the same with his.

She hops down onto the lower platform, going down down down into the depths. Then the rocks go up again, and Rook feels awkward scrambling up the stone while she knows Jacob is just standing there waiting so he can go up next. The whole climb is quiet, the only sounds being the shuffling of their shoes on the ground and the occasional grunt from the exertion.

Then comes a particularly tall climb. The ledge is higher up than all of Jacob’s height, and Rook stares up at it, at a loss. She steps aside as Jacob comes up from the previous climb up.

“What now?” He asks, since the discomfort is most likely clear on her face.

She gestures for him to pass ahead of her. “You, uh, you can reach that.”

“Just barely,” Jacob considers, craning his head back to look at the ledge.

“Go ahead,” Rook says, trying not to sound too frustrated with herself. “I’ll figure something out.”

Jacob turns his body to face her, the light clipped to his jacket shining on her. She squints at the sudden light, then realizes he’s just staring at her.

“What?” She asks, biting down on her tongue when she notices how annoyed she sounds.

He crosses his arms, the beam of light jumping slightly at the movement on his torso. A small smirk creeps onto his face, beard twitching. “You sure John chose your sin correctly?”

She crosses her arms over her chest and shoots him a sour look.

Jacob snorts—a cruel, mocking sound rushing out of his lips. He steps back, angling himself so that his back is against the wall of the ledge, and bends his knees. The material of his jacket scrapes loudly against the uneven rock as he slides down. He cups his hands together, they hover just above his knee.

“Come on then,” He says, nudging his chin upward to beckon her over.

“Uh…” Rook looks at him, confused. Helpful without direct malice or motive is an odd color on Jacob Seed.

“Swallow your _pride_ for 3 seconds or I’m leaving you down here.”

“Isn’t getting help ‘ _weak’_?” She retorts, lowering her voice mockingly when she stresses on _weak_.

The smirk wipes off his face, blue eyes flashing. “It’s _weak_ to hold us both back over your own pride. Now fucking climb.”

“Fine,” she bites out. Maybe pissing off the guy trying to help her just because she hates him isn’t the smartest idea. She steps forward, holds onto his broad shoulders and places her boot atop his clasped hands.

Blue eyes regard her for a moment, and before she can let out a snarky _what are you waiting for?_ he launches her up with a grunt. Her hands push off his shoulders, trying to ignore the feeling of his muscles contorting underneath her fingertips, and reaches up for the ledge.

With the momentum of the boost, she hefts herself up and over, crawling forward until her feet are out of thin air and finding purchase on the rock’s surface, boots crunching on the thin layer of loose gravel coating the rock.

“You’re clear to come up.” Rook says as she stands, dusting the dirt off her legs.

She doesn’t hear anything back from Jacob, but a pair of hands appear at the edge of the rock, his firm grip on the edge blanching at his nails. A tuft of dark ginger hair follows soon after, as Jacob pulls himself up the ledge with a grunt. His face flushes from the exertion, as if the color from his slightly sweat-damp hair bleeds into his skin.

He makes it about halfway up, his torso looming over the surface of the rock, but he struggles slightly with getting his legs over. Rook feels like maybe she should help him, just yank him up, and maybe if he was anyone else she would. But instead, she just stands there and watches him clamber up, her arms crossed over her chest.

When he finally makes it up, he’s panting lightly and glowers at Rook when he sees her.

She blinks innocently at him. “Did you want me to help you or—”

“Just fucking climb.”

The rumble in his voice makes Rook hop up the rest of the rocks without another word, keenly aware of his heavier steps behind her.

They continue like that for the rest of the way, in complete silence save for the shifting sounds of their steps up. Rook notices the natural stone steps flatten as they venture further, the path ahead of them starting to look more manmade than natural. They must be getting closer to a part of the mine that’s more complete.

Rook also notices that both of their flashlights have been growing dimmer. She ignores the worry gnawing at her gut and keeps walking, glancing back to see if Jacob’s still there. His footsteps grew quieter when they continued on, but he’s there. She doesn’t squint at the light he shines on her ( _which is a bad sign, god knows how much longer these flashlights will last_ ), so her eyes find his right away. He holds her gaze for a moment and before she looks away, back to the deep dark tunnel.

The tunnel twists and turns, until Rook rounds a sharp corner and finds herself stopping at a collapsed archway. Jacob walks right into her when he turns the corner in suit, and she hears his surprised breath the same time she startles at the sudden contact.

She steps away, looking at Jacob then back at the archway. “It doesn’t look too bad. I think we can get through. Nowhere else to go but forward.”

He steps toward the collapsed debris, looming past her, and shines his light through it, gearing his head to the side as he examines it.

“We’re lucky it’s still intact on the other side,” he says, voice low since he’s right next to her.

_There’s nothing lucky about any of this,_ Rook wants to say.

“That beam right there,” Rook sweeps her light across its length to single it out of the mess, “Maybe we can raise it a bit, and I don’t know, go under it?”

“By _we_ you mean me, don’t you.” The scars on his forehead press together as he raises a brow at her.

She shrugs. “I’ll _help_ , but yeah, we both know you’re the brawn here.”

“You sayin’ I lack the brain, Deputy?”

“Please,” she scoffs, “You’ve been classically conditioning a good chunk of Hope County, you don’t need me stroking your ego by telling you that you’re a smart bastard.”

He grins with too many teeth. “By all means Deputy, you’ve already given testament to how _strong_ I am, I could use the morale boost.”

She makes an indignant noise and gestures to the beam with frantic gusto. “Just— _asshole_ —can you lift the damn thing already!”

He clicks his tongue and turns to back to the beam. His hands lightly roam the bottom of the beam, pressing experimentally for where to best hold it.

“So impatient,” He huffs under his breath, the mocking grin still maddeningly there. It’s basically a sneer at this point. Rook’s noticed that Jacob has never once grinned properly, genuinely—there’s always something off, showing too many teeth and an underlying vicious, untamed curl on his lips.

She briefly wonders if he’s this way with his family—that maybe there’s a secret, _genuine_ Jacob reserved just for them. Or perhaps that Jacob died a long time ago, she makes an educated guess.

When he starts to push up the beam, dust falls from somewhere at the top and the smaller bits of the debris clutter and snap. Rook moves to help, but her pushing doesn’t really do anything, the beam moves higher up, and she knows Jacob’s doing the brunt of the work.

“Go,” Jacob’s voice is strained. He nudges her with his elbow.

Rook doesn’t need to be told twice. Her hands leave the beam and she ducks under it, narrowly avoiding fragments of debris hitting her head. Crouching through the mass, she twists herself back around to steady the beam for Jacob to pass under, but with a strained _I got it_ he pushes the beam higher himself and ducks his head under it.

Rook kicks aside a broken piece of scaffolding as she exits the debris pile, and Jacob has to leap out the second he lets go of the beam before it all crumbles down. Rook winces as the loud sounds of groaning metal and crumbling rocks. Wooden parts of the scaffolding splinter and fly out of the pile, a small piece just barely missing her shoulder in its trajectory.

Hey eyes follow along the wall to see another archway, most likely leading into the mine. She peers into it only to see that several feet the cave walls have completely caved in.

“Well, we're not going that way.” Her shoulders sag, disappointed.

“Deputy,” Jacob says somewhere behind her.

She steps backwards and turns around, but the _yeah?_ dies on her tongue when Jacob quickly pulls her back.

“Watch it.”

“What the—oh fuck.” She staggers, cautiously peering down to see that the ground they walk on comes to an abrupt end less than two feet away from her.

“It’s a long way down,” Jacob says, his hand sliding off her shoulder.

“Thanks,” she exhales. She unclips her flashlight from her jacket and shines it down.

The light flickers, it's gotten even dimmer than before. The beam’s reach isn't strong enough to find the bottom.

“Crap.” She smacks the flashlight handle, trying to jostle the batteries. She looks at Jacob. “Can we try yours?”

“Mine’s almost out too,” he says, but he unclips his flashlight and shines it down the drop anyway. Nothing. He shrugs and runs a hand through his hair, eyes darting around.

He points at a stretch of the edge away from both of them, his arm extending in front of her.

“See that? Someone’s been here—scaled this.” Rook cranes her neck to follow where he points. A few feet away from where she stands, it looks like a rusted blue bar sticks out of the edge. It looks older, but it’s just like the built-in grapple points scattered around Hope County.

“So… we _want_ to go down down there…” Rook trails off, unsure. Maybe she’s scaled down higher—jumped off higher—but never down to where she can’t see the bottom.

“Got nowhere else to go,” Jacob shrugs, he doesn’t look happy about it either, but he’s right. Where else do they go?

“We don’t even have rope,” Rook says, cursing herself for not bringing her grappling hook with her today. She didn’t think she’d need it. She left it back at the Ryes’ this morning. _Shit, was that really this morning? Feels like forever ago._

Jacob’s already over at the bar, shining his dimming light over it. He pulls at something. “There’s a rope on this. Looks like the last person here didn’t clean up after themselves.”

“Or something else happened to them.”

“Or that.” Jacob nods tersely, clipping the flashlight back onto his jacket. He slides the grapple noisily over to the side so it’s locked in the corner of the bar and his hand disappears over the edge.

“Wait. You don’t know if the rope is still—Jacob!” Rook cuts herself short when Jacob just drops over the edge.

She briskly makes her way over the bar, leaning over worriedly since Jacob hasn’t said anything yet. “Jacob, are you—oh you motherfucker.”

The faint beam of her flashlight finds Jacob a few feet below, dangling leisurely on the rope and raising a brow up at her. “Sounded worried there, Deputy.”

“Just worried I don’t get to kill you myself!” Rook says with a scowl. She’s lucky he can’t see the heat rising in her cheeks.

“The rope’s in good shape.” Jacob’s voice trails up to her distantly. He’s descending quickly, probably as eager as Rook is to get the fuck out of here.

“Do you see the bottom?” She calls down. He’s disappeared beyond the weak beam of her light, all she can make out are faint echoes of stressing rope and boots scuffling against stone.

“Yeah,” his voice calls up after a while, distant. “Come down.”

With a deep breath, Rook begins her descent. It’s easy enough to go down, but she does so with more care than usual, the flickering of her flashlight making her nervous.

She’s a good length down before she hears a groaning of metal. Rigid with dread, she squints up into the dark as if she can see where she started. The metal bar groans again at her movements, followed by small rocks tumbling down beside her.

“Shit,” she breathes and descends faster.

To make things worse, her flashlight dies.

_Shit shit shit_. She moves faster, carelessly now to the point where she feels the ropes burn her hands.

Then the rope goes slack. She gasps as she plummets into the dark, and squeezes her eyes shut, bracing herself for impact, broken bones, or worse.

She hits the ground heavy with a yelp, bending into her knees and feeling her palms slam into the ground, trying her best to land properly. Her ankles scream at the impact, but the fall was only a few feet. In the dark, she assumed she was higher than that.

“Holy shit,” She gasps, nothing is broken but her lower legs fucking hurt. The grappling hook attached to the rope comes whistling down a second later, falling into the small pool of rope next to her.

Rook straightens up, wincing and inhaling sharply as she feels a wave of pain wrack through her lower half. She’s had worse, but _ow_.

Then Jacob’s standing next to her, arms crossed over his chest. She barely sees him coming with how dark it is. The flashlight on his jacket isn’t dead like hers, but it’s nearly there. There’s no longer a faint beam but a soft, dying glow of fluorescent light casting only a dim light on his arm and her shoulder.

With only the weak lighting, she just barely make out his face. It makes his scars look softer, the light faintly glazing past his beard and over them. He blinks down at her. His expression is guileless, but his tone doesn’t hold up to that. “Did you want me to help you, or…”

He trails off and Rook realizes he’s mimicking her words from earlier. She rolls her eyes. “You dick.”

“Your words, not mine.”

Before she can retort, she hears something in the distance, above them. Looking up, she can hear it getting closer and closer. Just when Rook realizes something is _hurtling_ down towards them, an arm snakes around her upper back and yanks her forward.

They stumble back a few steps and with the force of the pull Rook’s face slams into Jacob’s chest. She gets a faceful of zipper and dog tags and just when she catches herself stupidly thinking _he smells kinda_ _nice,_ a loud crash of metal on stone clatters behind her. She jumps at the sound, pushing herself away from Jacob to twist around and assess the damage.

His arm is still around her, but he’s loosened enough for her to move. In the dark, dark light she can just see the shapes of what looks to be the rusted old bar, bent and broken. It’s only inches away from where she stands.

“Uh, thanks.” Rook looks away when she says this. Not wanting to look at him when she realizes she’s thanking one of the Seeds for the _second_ time today.

Jacob’s arm is gone in an instant, and he’s walking away like it never happened. _Good._ She trails after him since he’s the only one with a light source.

“There’s a body over here,” Jacob’s voice is nearly a rasp, but it clears as he continues talking. “Found it when you were still climbing down. It ain’t pretty, looks ‘bouta couple months old.”

The small cave chamber they’re in narrows down into another archway, but there is no manmade scaffolding, it seems natural to the cave. Jacob stops by a dark, corpse-shaped lump on the ground, patting it down. Rook’s glad he’s searching it, because it already smells terrible from where she stands.

Whoever they used to be, they must have fallen from the rope and crawled away by the looks of how they’re positioned. Their body too broken from the fall, they never made it.

“Don’t think there’s anything good on him,” Jacob says, retracting his hands. From where she stands, Rook sees something sticking out from under the body. She almost missed it under the flickering of Jacob’s faded light.

Wordlessly, Rook wrinkles her nose at the smell and pulls the object out from under the body. Her hopes rise when she guesses what it is, but to be sure she hovers her hand closer to Jacob, shedding whatever light she can on it.

“It’s a key,” she says quietly. Trying not to get her hopes too high.

“Now we just figure out where that leads.”

“Keep walking,” Rook says. The corpse was crawling in the direction they were walking in. There must be _something_ there.

Sure enough, the path is short. They walk only several more paces until they follow the curve of the cave wall and spot a small red light. A _familiar_ red light.

The metal door is the only thing manmade, the short tunnel looked like it would have been a dead end had the bunker not been built into it, the walls narrowing and ending just where the door begins. Rook strides towards it and tries the key.

With a mechanical beep, the red light turns green.

Rook pushes the door open, and the lights flicker on in the bunker. She squints at the sudden light, but is grateful to no longer be in the dark. She ventures in further, eager to explore the prepper stash—eager to find a way out.

She hears Jacob follow in behind her, letting out a low whistle. “Now this is a sight for sore eyes.”

“We’re almost out,” Rook says, eyes darting all over the place.

The bunker is small, built for probably just one person, but it’s functioning. _There’s gotta be a second exit, no way would a bunker be built in here with just an out leading into a dead mine._ She searches for a ladder, possibly leading to a hatch in the ceiling, anything that will get them out.

Jacob pulls a note off the wall by the door they came in from.

“Exit to cave,” he reads, then snorts derisively. “No shit.”

Rook reaches the corridor on the other end of the bunker, past the bed and bathroom. There’s a similar note on the wall, the sticky side of it wearing off and dog-earing the corners. She smooths it out with two fingers.

“Exit to North Henbane River,” she reads aloud. She quickly turns the sharp corner of the corridor and there it is. The bunker door leading out to the Henbane. Its lock glows a green light, indicating that all she has to do is _push it open_ and this shit show is over.

Jacob crosses the short distance of the bunker and stops just an arm’s length away from her, when he notices the door his posture changes, tenses. It’s a miniscule shift, but Rook notices the way his arms just hang stiffly by his sides.

“That what I think it is?” Jacob asks, casually. This is the end of whatever the fuck this alliance was.

“Door. To Henbane. Yeah.” Rook moves her hand as slowly and casually as she can towards her handgun.

They stare each other down for a second, then another. Then Rook’s pulling out her handgun and Jacob’s lunging at her, combat knife flashing in the light.

Jacob’s shoving her hand away before she can even wrap her finger around the trigger, the knife surges at her throat but Rook’s free hand goes for his wrist, delaying the stab a split-second long enough for her to lean viciously to the side and dodge it.

“I don’t think so.” Jacob growls, his grip on her is bruising.

Jacob twists her arm holding the gun so hard she cries out, dropping the gun. It clatters to the ground, and he kicks it away. Rook uses the moment he glances down in kicking the gun to surge upwards and headbutt him. He grunts but barely flinches, so Rook goes low and grabs at his own handgun and switches the safety off. Once again, Jacob moves lightning fast.

Before she can even angle the barrel of the gun at him he grabs her hand and slams it against the wall, a deafening shot fires off in the small space of the bunker and Rook hears glass break, a framed photo on the wall falls to the ground. He slams her hand against the wall again, and the gun falls out of Rook’s hands. It’s already forgotten when she hears Jacob kick it away because she zeroes in on his knife next.

She grits her teeth and grabs onto his arm with both hands, swinging herself around so her back is against him and the knife point is angled away from her. She tries to wrangle the knife out of his hands, throwing her head back to headbutt him again.

There’s no grace—no expertise—in this fight, just two exhausted people eager to be done with this.

His other arm wraps around her midsection and tries to hold her still as he tries to angle the knife back towards her. Rook snarls and swings her legs up, kicking off the wall of the corridor to slam him into the opposite wall. She risks letting one of her hands go and elbows him under his chin when she pushes back.

Jacob hisses into her hair when they hit the wall and Rook feels his grip around the knife loosen ever so slightly. She uses the opportunity to lean down and bite at the knuckle of his thumb while she tries to pry the knife out of his hands, the arm around her midsection still anchoring her to him.

She tastes blood when Jacob makes a feral sound and lets go of the knife. She tries to get a grip on it, but it tumbles out of her fingers and clatters to the ground. Then Jacob literally hurls her off him, she flies and collides with the bunker door—the very door that was the catalyst to this fight.

She slumps against the door, her head spinning and blood on her teeth. Jacob slinks down and picks his knife up from the ground. _Guess I’m not even worth the bullet_ , she thinks faintly, everything is dizzying.

Jacob, with a bloody nose and a bruise blossoming into the scars on his right cheekbone, knife in a hand dotted with blood around his knuckle, stands to his full height and lurks toward her.

Then, he stops. The menacing expression in his eyes faltering as he slowly drags his eyes away from her slumped against the door and on somewhere above her instead.

“You gotta be fucking kidding me,” He says flatly, panting lightly.

Head throbbing, Rook takes a chance and slowly gets to her feet. Jacob doesn’t attack. Rook follows his eyes to the door and can’t fucking _believe_ her luck.

When Jacob threw her against the bunker door, the impact had opened it. The door didn’t move the whole way through, it’s stuck ajar. The opening so narrow Rook might not even be able to slip her arm through it.

A few rocks had tumbled into through the door when it opened. They sit neatly by the doorframe. Looking through the narrow opening, all Rook can see are piles of rocks pressed against it.

“No,” Rook mumbles, frantic. “No. No no no.”

She pushes the door. It doesn’t budge. She pushes again and again, slamming her shoulder into it. Nothing.

Rook hears something clatter to the ground behind her and whips her head around, the world spinning for a second in her aching head. Jacob’s dropped the knife. It lays abandoned on the floor, near a few scattered and smeared drops of blood.

Jacob backs up against the wall she had pushed them both backward into earlier and sinks down. He props his arms up on his legs as he sits against the wall, elbows resting on knees and head dropped in hands. One long, shuddering sigh draws out of him as he runs his hands down his face, oblivious to the fact that he’s smearing blood into his beard.

When they lock eyes again there’s just exhaustion and defeat. On both sides.

Rook sinks back down to the ground, down down down until she’s lying on her back. Her head bumps into her discarded gun, and she just pushes it out of the way so she can rest her head on the floor. She stares just stares at the ceiling, contemplating the situation.

She’s stuck here. For real this time. Trapped. Trapped in a dead man’s bunker in a massive, crumbling cave with _Jacob fucking Seed_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this was way longer than i thought it would be?? but anyway, yay, they DIDN'T kill each other


	3. Chapter 3

Rook glazes over the books on the shelf, idly running her fingers over the spines. There were a lot of books—mostly on survival, but there were some other non-fiction books and literature. Nothing she's really interested in checking out at the moment—and a part of her hopes that she never ends up browsing through them, because she would have to be stuck in this bunker for a _while_ to end up doing that.

Jacob tinkers with the old radio sitting on one of the tables. It was already kind of bust when Rook found it, but it suffered some damage soon after that.

Shortly after their little… _scuffle_ , Jacob had attacked the door for a full 15 minutes like he was possessed. Rook had taken to exploring the rest of the bunker, slinking off her pathetic moping on the floor and going through the belongings of the dead man that lay around the bunker, looking for anything that would help. Eventually she stepped out, back into the cave’s dead end, tolerating the stench of the rotting corpse in exchange for a few moments of peace.

_Fucking relax, Rook. You’re not dead yet, and you’ve got Jacob Seed to help figure out a way out of here. If there even is a way out of here. Fuck._

When she gathered herself and trudged back into the bunker, Jacob was in the process of giving up on the door. Giving up meaning snarling out a cry of frustration, picking up a chair, and tossing it across the bunker… and right into the radio.

So yeah, now Jacob's decided he's going to ignore Rook and work on the radio. The chair has been set back in its original place, and both their jackets and gear have been discarded off to the side near the bunker door to the Henbane. Weapons discarded too. They’re not gonna try to kill each other again so soon after that last fight—at least, she hopes not, because Rook’s not sure if she actually stands a chance against that damn ginger giant.

The slightly rusty, old metal bookshelf she's perusing through is taller than her, the backing of the shelf scratched up behind the books. She pulls some books back, hoping that maybe the scratches along the metal backing are some kind of message—some kind of clue written by a paranoid prepper that’ll get them out of here, but they’re just from age and use. The shelf is lined up against the wall and right next to the foot of the bed. Rook pales. The _only_ bed.

“Shit,” she whispers. If Jacob heard her, he doesn't acknowledge.

She glances down at her hands to see small cuts and scrapes from climbing, speckled with dirt and grime. She must be filthy.

In the bathroom, Rook examines herself in the mirror. She’s not as gross as she feels, but still pretty gross. The day’s grime and sweat builds under her earlobes and itchy around her bra strap. There’s dried blood smeared around her mouth and her chin from when she bit Jacob’s hand, and a bruise blossoming on her temple. Her dominant hand is hurt but more or less fine, just bruised. The most prominent of the bruises being a shadow of Jacob’s grip squeezing down on her wrist.

She splashes some water on her face, washes up her hands and leaves once she’s satisfied with feeling a little less gross.

The old radio’s abandoned. Instead, Jacob’s in the kitchen area. He leans against the kitchen counter with an open can in one hand and a spoon in the other, shoveling food into his mouth. When he sees her, he points over to the pantry with his spoon.

“Eat.”

Rook doesn’t object nor question the civility of this. She’s hungry. Much hungrier than she initially thought now that she’s gotten a glimpse of some food. It must be dark outside.

“Any luck with the radio?” Rook inquires after cracking a can of food ( _mixed meats? whatever, she didn’t bother to read the label_ ).

Jacob chews his food for a moment, then swallows it down audibly. “No. Piece of shit is busted.”

_Well there goes that idea,_ Rook thinks. The two of them finish their crappy canned meals in a stifling silence.

 

-

 

When Rook finally feels exhaustion weighing down on her eyelids, she decides _fine, if he’s not gonna be the one to bring it up then I will_.

She’s sitting on one of the two chairs in the kitchen, leaning her head on her arm with an elbow propped on the table.

“There’s only one bed,” she starts, staring at the cool blank surface of the table.

“Yeah,” Jacob says, tensing from where he’s uselessly making himself busy by taking stock of food supplies for the third time.

“So who’s sleeping on it?”

Rook’s question is only met by what feels like an unsure silence. She groans.

“Look. Obviously, neither of us planned to be here. It would have been nice if we’d gotten out of this fucking place hours ago before the day was over, but we’re here stuck here. For more than a day, probably. So we’ve gotta fucking address this lack of sleeping space at some point. Might as well be now because I’m _fucking_ exhausted.”

Now she’s looking up at him, her eyes furiously wide as she tries to keep awake. He puts a can he was holding back onto the shelf filled with similar cans, the muscle underneath his scarred forearm tensing. He had pushed up the sleeves of his grey henley a while ago, the matte pink of some of the splotches on his arms catching softly in the bunker’s fluorescent house lights. He meets her gaze, and it's only then she notices he looks as haggard as she feels.

“Take the bed,” he says stiffly.

“Where will you sleep?”

“Take the bed, and I’ll sleep on the floor.” He looks away, jaw tensing. “I don’t—I don’t sleep much anyway.”

“Okay.” Rook nods and stands, the chair scraping against the floor. She’s tired. She’s tired of these stifling awkward silences, tired of fighting, tired of thinking of the fact that she’s stuck here with the eldest of the Seeds, and just tired of this goddamn day.

She crosses the few steps of short distance it is from the kitchen side of the bunker to the bed, kicks off her boots, flops down, and passes the fuck out.

Rook wakes up a couple hours later. Her eyes open slowly, reluctantly, and shifts in the bed. It's dark in the bunker, Jacob must have turned off the house lights at some point when he turned in as well.

Jacob—who is tossing and turning restlessly on the floor by the bed. He’s mumbling something under his breath, too quiet for her to make out but the tone is urgent. Rook blinks, feeling slightly more awake as she registers that whatever nightmare he's having as woken her up.

“Jacob,” she whispers, maybe to rouse him, maybe to calm him, Rook has no idea what she's trying to do.

His body turns violently and for a second Rook thinks he’s awake, but when she squints she can see that his eyes are squeezed shut. Ragged breaths whistle out of his clenched teeth, and he twists and turns some more, muttering something that sounds like orders.

Despite her better judgement—sleepiness still addling her brain most likely—she shuffles closer to the edge of the bed and reaches with a slow, hesitant hand. Her palm finds purchase on the spot between his shoulder and chest, finding his shirt warm and damp with sweat.

“Jacob?” Rook tries again, squeezing lightly. “Hey, it’s just a dream.”

Jacob shifts again, his labored breathing slowing down. He shudders and leans into the touch, seeming to relax slightly. He doesn’t wake, but he’s seemed to calm, and that’s enough for Rook to try to go back to sleep herself.

 

-

 

Rook wakes up the next morning earlier than she’d like. The bunker lights are on, soaking in through her eyelids. Cracking an eye open and glancing at the clock on the wall—she groans into the off-white pillow. The sun would just be gearing up to rise outside, probably. She tries to go back to sleep but, like earlier that night, it’s Jacob who’s woken up her up again, and with the noise he’s making it’s as if he intends to make it impossible for her to go back to sleep.

The sun is still sleeping, and he’s doing fucking push-ups on the floor, and it seems like he’s been at it for a while. His dog tags, dangling in mid-air from his neck, _clink_ against the metal floor with every dip he takes.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Her voice is muffled against the pillow, bleary.

He stops in the air and turns his head to look at her, a few locks of red hair sticking to his damp, scarred forehead.

“You’re awake,” he says, slightly out of breath from god knows many push-ups he’s already done.

Rook squeezes her eyes shut and buries her face further into the pillow, desperate to go back into a dreamless sleep and escape the reality she’s in. “It’s not even sunrise and you’re doing some fucking workout routine.”

“I told you already. I don’t sleep much.” With a huff, and a telltale sound of dog tags bouncing on the floor she can tell he’s gone back to his push-ups.

“So you just, what, wake up and go straight to this?”

“Gotta—kill time—somehow,” he grunts between push-ups. “Already slept—longer than—I normally do.”

Rook opens her eyes just a little, so her view of Jacob and the bunker is slightly blurry around the edges, not yet committing to waking up fully. Her voice comes out quiet, hesitating on whether she should bring it up or not. “You get nightmares often?”

Jacob stops again, tensing.

“Yes,” he grates out after a moment. His eyebrows knit upwards. “I usually wake right up after—but, I dunno, earlier I just woke up like I slept through ‘em.”

“Oh,” Rook says, the events of the night slowly coming back to her, pushing through her sleep addled head. “Yeah, uh, I woke up because I heard you. Tried to wake you up I think—but after patting you a couple times you just quieted down and I think I just fell back asleep.”

Jacob says nothing, but a muscle works in his jaw like he’s biting down words. Probably something along the lines of _don’t fucking touch me when I’m sleeping I’ll kill you_ , Rook presumes. He tears his eyes away from her and goes back to his push-ups.

Rook rolls back so she faces the wall and presses her eyes shut again. “Could you do something less loud? Seriously, it’s way too early for me to be awake and functioning right now.”

“Too—” _clink_ go the dog tags, “—distracting?”

“Read a book or something, or go shower, the bathroom’s far enough for me to have some quiet. Jesus, you stink.”

A scoff. “So do you.”

“Ugh,” Rook curls up in the bed. “Just give me another hour of sleep, asshole.”

Jacob snorts, but he doesn’t continue his push-ups. She hears rustling, then Jacob’s footsteps disappearing down the narrow hall. _Finally_ , she thinks and wills sleep to return to her.

 

-

 

The rest of the day wastes away painfully slow.

After Rook slides out of bed, she passes by a freshly clean Jacob wearing a borrowed clean sweater from the dead owner’s closet and raids the closet herself. She doesn’t know if the dead guy— _Jim_ , she finds labeled on the back of a pair of boxers ( _what was this guy, 12?_ )—was expecting any female company in here at some point but luckily she finds a pack of disposable panties. Better than wearing the same pair of underwear for who knows how long.

As for a bra? She doesn’t find anything. She’s already worn this sports bra for about a week, so she settles for washing that, her underwear, and her red flannel in the sink and wearing one of dead Jim’s oversized sweaters while she hangs them up to dry by the unused hook on the bathroom door.

The shower is _wonderful_ , after everything that’s happened she’s so tempted to just stay under the water for hours.

Once out of the shower, the day dissolves into Rook spending time trying to fix the radio even though she doesn’t know shit, and Jacob trying to dislodge whatever blockage he can by the Henbane door. They both give up pretty soon, kind of accepting doom, and eventually they both just end up on opposite ends of the bunker reading whatever book they found interesting on the shelf, pointedly avoiding each others’ existence.

 

-

 

By the fourth night, Rook’s had enough. She hasn’t gone to sleep yet, staring up at the ceiling, her eyes have already adjusted to the dark. She heard Jacob breathing on the floor, but it was lights out just 10 minutes ago so Rook thinks he might not have fallen asleep yet.

She has a bad idea.

The second night, she had done the same thing she did on the first, but no longer with the intent of trying to wake him. She had woken up again to the beginnings of his fits and just reached over the edge of the bed again to stroke his back. Not quite at peace, but he calmed and leaned into it in his sleep and she fell back asleep with her hand still on him. Then, she woke up early early early again to Jacob busying himself in the bunker, unable to return to sleep. They don’t talk about Rook soothing him at night, but she knows he knows, because she still wakes up with her arm dangling over the mattress’ edge.

The third night didn’t go as smoothly. Lacking her usual hours of undisturbed sleep Rook woke up too late. Jacob was thrashing, his arms waving around wildly, shouting for his brothers. Jacob’s fist flies up and punches the bed frame hard, shaking the bed.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Rook raised her voice over his hoarse shouting. “Jacob! Shit, wake up!”

Stupidly, she tried to reach for him and dodged just in time when his elbow swung dangerously close to her face. Throwing off the sheets, she climbed out of bed and knelt down just above his head, pushing her messed bed hair out of her face. She shook at his shoulders gently, _wake up wake up it’s just a dream_. His fist flies up again, and Rook leaned back abruptly so it collided hard with the bed frame again instead of her.

The force of the second punch on the bed frame woke him. His eyes snapped open, wide and wild, and Rook retracted her hands immediately. He sat up, breathing heavily then turned towards Rook, his body still wound up and ready to lash out again.

“Hey, hey, it’s just me.” Rook raised her hands cautiously, not daring to make any sudden movements.

His chest was still heaving with every breath, but he made no move. After a few moments, Rook slowly stood and crossed blindly in the dark to the desk with the broken radio. She pawed around the table until she found the lamp, then the switch.

She had winced at the sudden light, but it was better than turning on the harsh house lights. With the area dimly lit by a warm golden glow, she stepped into the kitchen area, pulling up the loose boxers of dead Jim she wore as pajama shorts and opened one of the creaking cabinets.

Jacob watched her with exhausted eyes when she dropped back down on the floor with him, first-aid kit in tow. His breathing had calmed down, but his expression was so guarded Rook couldn’t discern if he was going to attack her for seeing this _weakness_ or—or something else. She’d rather not dwell on what, not when she felt like she was an open book being devoured by the reader’s misty blue eyes.

“Your, uh, your hand’s bleeding,” she said quietly. It felt too quiet to talk at normal volume.

He offered up his hand, faltering mid-way like he had changed his mind, but didn’t protest when she took it. In fact, she realized, he hadn’t said a word at all since she had dragged him out of his head.

They sat there in a jarring silence while she cleaned and wrapped his hand, keenly aware of the uneven terrain of his scars gliding against her fingertips.

Like the other nights before, neither of them dared to breathe a word of it the next day.

But night four, oh, night four, Rook has an awful, terrible, straight up _awkward_ idea but she’s sick of this routine and so fucking desperate for a night of undisturbed sleep she just bites the bullet.

“Jacob,” she hisses into the dark, turning her head so she’s looking off the edge of the bed. From here she can just see the shape of his nose and the rise of his chest over the bed.

“Mmwhat,” he croaks out.

“You awake?”

“The fuck do you think?”

“I have a stupid idea.”

“Do you have to talk about this stupid idea right now?”

_Rip off the bandaid, Rook._ “You should, uh, sleep on the bed.”

Silence.

_Well, shit. Way to make things incredibly awkward._ “I just mean like, I’ve kinda been trying to calm your, uh, sleeping problems already. I think it would just be easier if you were already here so I wouldn’t have to wake up in time, or something, and—”

“You want me to sleep there. With you.”

“Okay, well, _want_ is a strong word. I just think it would not only be easier for the _both_ of us, but you don’t have to sleep on the floor anymore too.”

“Deputy, I’m _touched_ ,” his tone is sharp, mocking, but she doesn’t really sense any venom in it. “Didn’t know you cared about my well being.”

“I don’t,” she says hotly. “This is purely selfish _and_ a win-win situation. I just want one fuckin’ night of undisturbed sleep.”

“I’m not fucking cuddlin’ up with you.”

“I didn’t say _cuddling_ , oh my god.” Rook curls up in the bed so she can put her face in her hands. _Holy shit, did this backfire._ She should’ve seen it coming. “This was—god, like an olive branch or something, I don’t fucking know. Wow, okay, that killed it. Never mind, that’s the last time I’ll suggest doing something nice for you, Seed.”

He snorts, contempt hanging in the air between them. Rook twists under the sheets so she’s facing the wall and shuts her eyes tight, already exhausted thinking of when she’s gonna wake up again later when they fall back into routine. The exhaustion pulls her under almost instantly.

The next morning, Rook wakes up and realizes she’s _rested_ —that she’s woken up naturally, instead of a rude awakening from either Jacob’s nightmares and loud early morning busywork. Something weighs down comfortably on her side. She tries to roll onto her back, so she can get an angle and see what time it is on the wall clock, but freezes when she notices two things: the lights are still off and her shoulder’s bumped into something solid.

She cranes her neck, trying to look over her shoulder, but mid-way she sees one long arm with familiar splotchy scars canvassed on it draped over her waist.

_What._ Rook is fully awake now. She twists herself around, after some effort due to the meaty arm weighing her down and the sheets tangling at her feet, and finds herself face to face with Jacob Seed, fast asleep.

He’s sleeping soundly over the sheets, but Rook’s mind racing because he actually took her advice last night and she doesn’t know what to make of it. She doesn’t even know what to _do_ right now.

Jacob is sleeping on the same bed as her, hell, even the same pillow. She squints in through the dark at the wall clock, eyes adjusted to the dark to just barely make out where the hour hand is and _holy shit_.

Jacob’s not only slept the whole night, but it’s even a little past noon.

And shit, he _is_ actually cuddling her a bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I'm not fucking cuddlin' up with you." liar


	4. Chapter 4

Rook is still contemplating her next move when Jacob stirs. For a split second, she thinks about feigning sleep, but he’d probably see right through that and then this would be even weirder. Should she just… like… sit up? Jump out of the bed like this is some kind of strangely cozy trap?

She curses herself for spending too much time fretting in her head when Jacob’s eyes flutter open, blinking the sleep out. She wants to phase into the mattress, flatten and sink down so maybe she’ll disappear before Jacob realizes she’s next to him.

Jacob’s head is tilted down, curled into himself slightly, and slowly he unfurls. Rook feels him tense after a second, and she knows he knows. Slowly, his eyes drag upwards to meet hers, those blues settling in on her face, and sees that she’s already awake.

“Uh, morning.” Rook blurts out, eyebrows raised curiously.

“Shit,” he says, voice a little husky from sleep. He turns to lie on his back, arm leaving her side. He pinches the bridge of his nose.

“I see you took my advice.” The words leave her mouth on autopilot. A snappy countermeasure to the panic inside from how disturbingly intimate this is.

He sighs, a scowl working up his face. “Thought I’d wake up in time to get out before you’d notice.”

Rook is surprised by the honesty. “Well, you didn’t. I was right, by the way. It’s well past noon.”

_He slept that entire time._

The weight shifts on the mattress when he hefts himself out of bed, joints clicking and cracking, one long stride over to the wall with the light switch. He still slept with his jeans on, Rook never dared to ask why. She had seen jeans and sweatpants alike in the closet, could be his size—just a little too big or a little too small, she’ll never know, but she does know it would be way more comfortable to _not_ be in jeans all the time.

With a _click,_ the unrelenting fluorescent lights flicker on and Rook winces. “Ugh, too bright.”

Jacob rigidly stands with his hands on his hips, dog tags swaying lightly against the slightly too small forest green t-shirt he wears, and regards her with a guarded expression. “Look, that was—”

“Yeah yeah, never tell anyone that you cuddled me or else you kill me, whatever.” Rook waves a dismissive hand and yawns, turning to face the wall, pulling the sheets up higher.

“That was _not_ —” The words struggle to come out of his mouth. “— _cuddling._ ”

“I still get to be smug about being right, though. Sleeping up here was helpful to you after all.”

Jacob’s sounds like there’s something sour on his tongue. “Well, great. You absolute godsend.”

“Apparently I am,” Rook deadpans into the pillow— _her_ side of the pillow. “According to your man-bun brother, right? Sent to fuck everything up for you guys.”

The bed dips, and she shimmies closer to the wall to make room as she hears the rustling of Jacob re-situating himself on the bed again. Rook picks at a loose thread on the blanket, suddenly too aware of the closeness again. Her skin starts to prickle with anxiety, bringing up his family has led a bitterness into the room.

“Yeah, fucked up a lot of things,” Jacob’s tone has taken a low, cold turn. _He’s probably thinking of John. What you did to John._ “Got us fucking stuck here in the first place.”

Rook twists abruptly to face Jacob, the bed creaking at the sudden movement, props herself up on her elbow. “Did you just say this was _my fault?_ ”

He’s resting the back of his head in the palm of his hand, arm bent leisurely behind his head. His elbow’s probably sticking out over the edge. His other arm is draped over his abdomen, careful not to dip into the inch of space that separates them, careful not to have any physical contact with Rook. His posture suggests something relaxed—at ease—but the controlled expression on his face and the cold eyes drift from their gaze at the ceiling to her suggest a growing stress. Anger and frustration, bottled up for too long, on the brink.

A muscle works in his jaw. “Eli and the Whitetails—”

_No fucking way._

“They weren’t fucking working with me. The Whitetail you killed said it herself.” Rook interrupts, voice getting louder and higher with each word. She knows she’s getting worked up but _fuck_ has she been trying to keep a level head during their accidental imprisonment and now she feels just about ready to burst. “If anything! Blame the fucking Whitetails!"

“That’s not the point,” he says quietly, catching onto the anger air, reeling it in for himself. “If you hadn’t distracted m— _everyone,_ we would have been able to make it out of the cave before it collapsed.”

“ _I_ was distracting everyone? _I_ was the one stalling?” Rook seethes. “I was trying to fucking bail before you held me at knifepoint. I was just there to spy on your shit and— _oh._ I see what’s going on.”

Jacob makes a disdainful sound, lip curling and flashing teeth. “Please, enlighten me.”

“You were being nice earlier,” Rook grins, it’s not a friendly one. She points at him, her elbow digging in and twisting the sheets on the mattress as she does so. “Well, not _nice_ but scraping the surface of half-decent and now you’re being a dick to balance it out.”

“Look in the mirror, Deputy, I don’t think I’m the only one losing their shit right now.” Jacob’s eyes flash, turning completely to face her, lifting himself slightly on his arm so he’s eye-level. “Don’t take the way I’ve acted the last few days as _decency_. I’ve been fucking civil at best and that’s all your gonna get.”

“Must be some five-star civility from you then, when you’re trying to turn me into your little spoon.” Rook remarks, glaring at him.

“I’m not the one who invited me up to their bed.”

At that, Rook falters, features still set in a scowl but the retort dying on her tongue—because well, he’s got her there. 

Jacob catches this, the stutter in her step. He leans in closer, till their noses are almost touching. Those icy blue eyes crackling with some kind of cruel victory. Rook starts to feel her anger seeping out and a tiredness settle in, like Jacob’s leeching all the anger out for himself to thrive on.

“That what you wanted, then?” Jacob sneers at her. “Wanted me close to you? Wanted to spread your legs and—”

His taunt falls short when Rook drives the heel of her palm into his shoulder, extending her arm all the way to create distance. The push comes out of nowhere and wipes Jacob off the bed, rolling off the edge and landing unceremoniously on the ground with a dull _thump._

Rook’s cheeks burn—out of fury, embarrassment, and an inkling of fear. No, that's not what she wants. No, that's all kinds of betrayal to the people she cares about. To Staci the most—her friend suffering all kinds of fucked up survivalist torture while she's _here_. With the _enemy_. She doesn't even dare consider that. Not when they're here alone—not when she's starting to feel her hope for escape slip away with each minute they spend in this bunker—not when she feels herself starting to _care_. And if Jacob starts lashing out in fights like that? The claustrophobia turns into pure suffocation, and the only way that ends is with one of them dead, and the other dying alone soon after. Bloody.

_Plus you don't want to admit that you do, unfortunately, find him some fucked up kind of handsome._

Rook makes a frustrated sound. “Talk shit like that again and your dick’ll be stuffed and mounted on the wall.”

Jacob is over her in a flash, weight pressing her down into the mattress and one hand pressing down into her throat while the other is half buried in the pillow, propping him up so his torso hovers just above hers. The flurry of movement used to land on her so quickly had made him kick the bookshelf by the bed slightly, the short sound of its heavy weight scraping metallically against the wall and floor as it scuffs along the wall.

He presses down, fingers crushing her throat slowly, a furious storm contained in his cold eyes.

“Y’know, I’ve killed people for less than that.” Jacob’s voice is barely controlled, skirting along a crumbling edge. His breath is hot on her face, juxtaposing the coldness seeping into parts of her from the cut of blood circulation his hand poses.

Rook isn't scared. Rook doesn't move a muscle, doesn't resist. Rook feels her mouth curl into something scornful, baring her teeth. “You’re not gonna kill me.”

She tries to bore holes into his face with her gaze, maybe reignite the scars on his face, spreading the fire till the bunkers’ up in flames and put them out of their misery.

“And what makes you say that, Deputy? Pretty confident while I’m squeezing the wind out of ya.”

“Bullshit,” Rook’s breathes out, voice scratchy and low from the hand crushing her windpipe. “You kill me—you're stuck here all alone. Instead of keeping your sanity company I’ll be hanging out with that dead fuck in the cave.”

Her vision blurring at the edges. The ferocity of Jacob’s eyes getting misty and just hazing out into a pupil-less blue.

_End it, come on, end it._

“Sounds like I’ll be getting some fucking peace and quiet then.”

“Do it then, asshole,” she croaks out. “Kill me.”

Jacob’s massive hand squeezes tighter and tighter, bruising her throat. Rook feels like her head is going to explode. Faintly, placidly, she just stares up at Jacob. Goading. Accepting. There’s a stampede of emotions coursing through the blur of his eyes, so fast and so many that Rook can't guess what he’s thinking at all. A muscle jumps in his jaw, beard twitching.

Then with a snarl ripping from his throat he releases her, the weight on her there one second and gone the next as he flies off the bed and storms down the bunker. He disappears out the door to the cave, slamming it behind him.

Rook swallows in lungfuls of breath, gasping as she gingerly prods at her neck, hand-shaped bruises blossoming on her skin.

_Well, he didn’t kill you._

 

-

 

Jacob’s been in the cave for the better part of an hour. In that hour, Rook’s eaten, showered, brushed her teeth with the shitty brand of toothpaste in the bathroom that leaves a weird aftertaste, and changed out of her makeshift pajamas and into her jeans and flannel. Avoiding the unmade bed and avoiding the cave door.

With nothing else to do, she takes to the bookshelf again, deciding to skim through Moby Dick. She had read it once, in high school, vaguely remembers enough about the story to read with half her mind wandering.

When she tugs out the book in a careless motion, another book and the magazine on either side of it fall out of the shelf. That’s also the very second she hears the bunker door swing open, Jacob slipping back into the bunker as quietly as possible, phantom-like. Trying not to draw her attention no doubt. Good, because she doesn’t feel like talking.

The book—the _Bible_ , of course it is—topples to the ground quietly. The fishing magazine lands flat, its thin, glossy cover slapping the cold floor, and loose contents inside spilling out.

Rook throws Jacob a casual glance—a barebones acknowledgement. He looks tired, the dark circles around his eyes more defined, his posture lacking its usual lumbering gait. Quietly, refusing to give in to the curiosity—the goddamn _concern_ —tugging at her gut she turns her attention back to the fallen items at her feet. Zeroing in on them like they’re the only things in existence.

Loose papers have slid out from the fishing magazine. Notes, some crumpled and some on good condition, scrawled in a messy hand.

Interest piqued, Rook picks up the Bible, puts that and Moby Dick back on the shelf, scoops up the magazine, and sets it down on the kitchen table and pulls up a chair. Now that she’s cleared the short hall, Jacob walks through avoids her completely and enters the bathroom.

Rook idly wonders how long this will continue, both of them blatantly ignoring each other. She misses Sharky in that moment, remembering the bets they’d place against each other on shit as trivial as this. _$10 says you’ll cave and start talking to him again first_ , she imagines him saying to her if he were here. She wonders how everyone’s doing. Are they looking for her? Do they all think she’s dead? The latter seems more likely. It pangs in her chest to picture her friends soldiering on without her while she’s stuck existing _here_.

She focuses back on the few papers in front of her. It’s notes from the dead guy. She recognizes the handwriting, the left-leaning slant of the words similar to the _Jim_ she found in sharpie on the garter of the boxers she uses. There are a lot of notes. She resorts to holding the magazine up by its spine and shaking out whatever contents are left, watching scraps of yellow lined paper feather fall onto the table.

The first few notes she skims through are useless, meaningless things about his life and why he’s gotten himself a bunker, how he’s detached himself from his family out of this _The End is nigh!_ mania. She pushes those aside, not bothering to read all of that. She wants information about the bunker itself, anything from schematics to tiny little maintenance jobs here and there.

About ten minutes later, Jacob emerges from the bathroom when she starts to glaze over a particularly long note, squinting into the messy handwriting as if it’ll make it easier to read. In her peripherals, she sees that he’s still in the same clothes but he’s shaking a towel over his head as he walks barefoot into the kitchen area, the fresh soapy smell of the shower wafting in his wake.

This is the most stifling the small space of the bunker has ever been. As if every minute that passed the walls closed in inch-by-inch.

Rook glares down at the notes harder, ignoring the soft clatter of Jacob pulling the first aid kit out from under the sink. Just reads the notes and ignores him.

_‘They won’t let me see my daughter anymore. They say my obsession has gotten out of control, my ~~wife~~ ex-wife spits in my face and tells me I should just lock myself away in here forever. Maybe I should. Forget that the world is ending, Hope County’s gonna turn to shit sooner. I know it. Those folks from Eden’s Gate grow like a parasite in this town. No one’s paying att—’_

“Shit,” Jacob hisses quietly. A dull _thud_ and a roll of bandages bumps her foot.

She glances at him, still keeping her head tilted down towards the papers on the table. He’s leaning against the counter, towel draped around his shoulders, red hair a shade darker from dampness and glistening under the fluorescent overhead light, hands bloody and shaking. Knuckles on both hands busted open and raw.

He can’t wrap his hands himself, not with how much they’re shaking from god knows what he’s been throwing his fists at.

 _Damn my fucking good samaritan gut._ With a heavy exhale, she picks up the bandage roll on the ground and slides out of her seat.

He grows stock-still by the counter when she approaches, avoiding his eyes. She can feel his gaze trying to pry into her head.

Now that she’s closer, she sees his hands properly. They’re blistering raw, the darker tones caking around his knuckles, his skin smeared with it on the back of his palm and in the folds of skin at his fingers, and on top of it all there’s a brand new, shiny and wet red leaking out of the knuckles on both his hands, finding homes to gather in inside the little craters and crisscrosses of old scars. The left hand looking worse than the other since the wounds from two nights ago never got the time to finish healing.

Rook says nothing, bites down on her tongue because she knows if she breaks the silence she’ll say some treacherous words of concern. With a pinched look on her face, she holds out her free hand, palm facing up and open, expectant.

A bruised, bloody, and hesitant hand drops into hers. With a featherlight touch, she wraps up cleans and wraps the ruined skin of his knuckles, taking extra time and care with the hand that’s more desolate than the other. The whole time she feels Jacob’s hollowed gaze zoned in on her.

When Rook finishes patching up his hands ( _again_ ), Jacob makes a small sound, like the words died in his throat and came out as an exhale instead. Finally, she looks up and meets his eyes, her own quizzical.

He tries again, voice scratchy. “What—” he juts his chin towards the kitchen table, towards the papers on it, “—what’s that?”

 _$10 Sharky, pay up_ , she thinks, followed by, _christ I’m gonna go fucking crazy in here._

Rook lets go of Jacob’s bandaged hands, takes a stiff half-step back. “Found some notes hidden in the fishing magazine. Just a useless diary so far.”

She goes back to the table, back into her seat, back to the notes. She pushes aside the useless ramblings about paranoia and ex-wives, starts skimming through a few of the shorter ones. Jacob puts his towel back in the bathroom and takes the seat across her. He flips through a fair share of them as well, chucking them away when they inevitably prove useless.

“I think I found a recent one—the date on this is closer to when the fighting in the county started,” Rook says, suddenly on the edge of her seat. Eyes hungrily scanning the page for _something_ useful. “Uh, he’s written… _was right about the cult. An aerial battle took place right by the Henbane. Bombs and a goddamn plane crash—_ ” she skips the detailing of events, “ _—sounded like it landed right by the door, rocks collapsing and burying the propeller against the door. Trapped in here—_ fuck, this is useless. Fucking died before he made it out, why did I even bother going through this shit.”

She feels empty and disappointed. _What were you expecting? A secret trapdoor or some shit?_ She drops her head into her hands, defeated, wincing at the soreness in around her neck. There’s nothing left to do, nowhere left to go. “We’re gonna die in here.”

Jacob stares at her a couple seconds, then leaves his spot at the table, disappearing from Rook’s line of sight. For a moment, she’s left there alone with her spiraling thoughts, staring down at the tabletop. Then Jacob’s bandaged hand is placing his 1911 on the table, barrel covering a part of the fishing magazine title, the introduction of a weapon yanking Rook out of her head.

Her head snaps up and meets his eyes—a cold, calm blue. She watches him as he settles back into his seat across her, a soft metal creak as he leans back into the chair.

He nods towards the gun. “Go on.”

“What is this, Jacob?”

“You said we’re gonna die here,” he shrugs, a blank poker face. “Might as well speed up the process.”

“What, I kill you then myself?” Rook points at him with a disbelieving finger and then at herself. The pinched sensation of her index finger digging into her chest being the only thing confirming to her that this is real, that this is actually happening.

“If that’s how you wanna go about it. Though I might protest when you point that thing at me.” He gestures languidly at the gun, collecting dust on the table.

Nerves prickling under her skin, Rook picks up the gun and flicks the safety off. She doesn’t point it anywhere yet, just stares down at it, feeling her shoulders rise and fall with every breath. _Do it. Finish it._ Rook’s killed people before, of course. Killed so many she’s stopped counting a long time ago. Her conscience is soaked in blood, dripping with it—but there’s something about this that makes her hesitant.

The violence of it, the complete _defeat_ of the act chills her to the bone. Jacob’s sentinel gaze watches her, waiting.

With a shaky exhale, she switches the safety back on and puts the gun down. She clenches her fists and pushes it away, towards him. “I can’t—I won’t do it.” _Won’t give up._

Jacob waits a moment. Then another.

“Guess that’s that, then.” He rumbles and slides out of his chair, picking up the gun and disappearing down the hall again to put it away.

Rook slumps back in her chair, runs a hand through her hair, stressed by what just happened. What sort of game is he playing at? Was that some kind of fucked up test?

“What the fuck was that?” she asks when Jacob comes back.

“You said we’re going to die here.” Jacob repeats as he rummages through the pantry, picking out what to eat from the three drab flavor options of canned food. “If you really believed that—accepted that—you would have gone through with it.”

“So… that was supposed to make me realize that we’re _not_ gonna die here?” Rook frowns. “But we haven’t found any way out of here.”

“I know that,” he says, rolling his eyes. He picks out a can, glancing at the label, and starts digging through the drawer for a spoon.

“Well, why didn’t you just do it then? If it was your idea why did I have to be the one to decide and pull the trigger.”

“I don’t plan on dying here,” he says simply. He works the can opener and starts digging into his food. “Not here.”

“Well then why didn’t you just shoot me, then? It’d definitely be roomier in here with one of us dead. You wouldn’t need to share supplies anymore.”

Jacob doesn’t answer right away. He holds her gaze, blue eyes searching, then his eyes fall on her neck, on the purpling ghost of his hands bruising around her throat. He pokes at his food, tearing his eyes away from her to stare down at the mush on his spoon. Avoids her eyes.

“You already know I can’t kill you.”

 

-

 

They read the remainder of the notes scattered on the kitchen table, both of them just latching onto the task as there’s nothing else to do.

Rook feels more relaxed now, after that whole thing with the gun. She’ll never admit it out loud but it did make her feel better, a little less defeated about their current situation here. It’s what Jacob intended, a lesson, his own fucked up way of helping calm her down and stop her from spiraling. She couldn’t do it, because she hasn’t given up yet. _We’re not dying here_.

Jacob’s own emotionally stunted way of making amends after the things he said that morning.

When it’s time again, the need for sleep seeping up in the both of them, they share a look and Rook takes the lead and turns off the house lights. She slips into bed, settling in under the covers. Jacob stands by the bed, his silhouette tense and still.

Then he moves, Rook scoots closer to the wall to make room for him but his shape in the dark stays a hesitant distance away, descending to the floor.

“Jacob.” There’s a finality to her voice, a questioning scold. _Jacob, what are you doing?_

His silhouette freezes, halfway down to the floor. She hears the soft _clink_ of dog tags swaying.

“Just get over here,” Rook says, dispersing the awkward cloud of hesitation that’s gathered above their sleeping arrangement.

“'Kay,” is all he says and the weight dips in the bed. There’s a sudden coldness on her legs when the sheets are lifted up so Jacob can slip under them.

She curls up facing the wall and closes her eyes.

 

-

 

Rook jolts awake when an elbow shoots out and gives her a sharp nudge on the arm. She turns to Jacob—who’s next to her and shuddering through a nightmare.

She throws an arm around him, wrapping around his chest while trying to keep his arms from moving, careful not to be restricting and just comforting. He struggles underneath her arm.

“No—no—not him,” he all but shouts, “John—Joe!”

She tries her best to soothe him out of the dream, whispering a soft _shh Jacob it’s just a dream_ while he flinches and gasps. He’s kicking off the sheets, letting the gathered warmth from underneath it flee from both of them.

It’s not getting any better. She chooses to move onto trying to wake him up. Shaking his shoulders, speaking louder. “You’re okay, you’re okay, just wake up!”

After some trying ( _and some dodging_ ) she’s successful. She can’t see his face in the dark but he shoots up, sitting up rigidly and panting. _At least I woke him before he started hurting himself_.

“Hey,” Rook says, reaching lightly for his bicep. He flinches, but then relaxes when he realizes where he is, away from his demons and back in reality. “I had to wake you up. You’re okay.” She tugs at his arm. “Go back to sleep.”

He’s still breathing heavily, mumbles some dazed vowel of agreement and lets her pull him back down. Rook paws around at the foot of the bed for the sheets and pulls it back over them. Jacob doesn’t relax completely, still tense, breathing still a bit uneven, so Rook throws her arm around him again. He makes a small, wounded sound of disbelief and she just presses closer, feeling the rise and fall of his chest even out.

“I’ll never speak of this.” Rook replies to unspoken words.

There’s only the sound of soft breathing as the both of them try to sleep once more. Rook presses down the conflict she feels when Jacob turns inward—toward her—and pulls her close until her head is resting against his chest. Textured, scarred skin gliding along her arm. The cold metal of the chain of his dog tags brushing against her forehead, contrasting the warmth of his chest and soft fabric of his shirt.

 _Shit, this is actually really nice,_ she thinks.

“Can’t—I can’t go back sleep.” Jacob’s sleep-raspy voice breaks the silence after a while. For fuck’s sake, from how close she is to him, she can feel those words rumble in his chest.

“Wanna talk about something? Take your mind off whatever it is that’s bothering you?” She says, keeping her voice low.

A quiet huff. “Like what?”

“Dunno,” Rook murmurs, searching her sleepy head for something to say. “What about when you said you don’t plan on dying here? Actually _plan_ to die somewhere? Shit, wait. That’s a heavy topic right now. God, ignore me.”

It’s quiet, and for a second she thinks Jacob’s managed to fall asleep. Then his chest rumbles against her face again as he speaks just above a whisper. “Don’t care if I die. I give my life for Eden’s Gate, for Joseph.”

“Then how come you fought so hard when we found the bunker? Since you don’t care if you die.”

“That’s not a sacrifice. A useless death. Does nothing to protect Joseph—the Gate. My purpose is sacrifice.”

“Hm.” She feels sleep tugging at her. “That’s a little fucked up. You’ve worked hard for all the shit you’ve achieved in the County, all to die? Sounds like you’ve sacrificed enough for someone your family fears.”

“I’m not scared of Joseph.” The way his voice hitches at the end sounds like he wants to say more, but doesn’t.

“John is. Plain as day on his face when I saw him and _The Father_ together. Don’t know much about Faith, but I bet she fears him too.”

He should be mad at her for making assumptions about his family like that, but there’s only silence. A heavy, contemplative silence.

Jacob’s voice pierces through the darkness once again, voice slow and languid. “What’s your name?”

Rook stills. Her name is something she hasn’t heard in a long time—for a good reason. Everyone in Hope County just refers to her as _Deputy_ , or _Rook_ if it’s her colleagues from the station. A title without a name—a title in substitution for a name—is one of the small mercies she finds in Hope County. Those who do know her name, her friends that watch her back while she fights Eden’s Gate politely shy away from its use after her introductory _just call me Deputy_ and she’s grateful for that. Being just the _Deputy_ lets her find solace in her actions, a cool numbness every time she kills—every time she takes _pleasure_ in killing.

Her name is in the past. She no longer belongs to her name.

She tells him her name, it feels foreign in her mouth. “—But I’d rather everyone just call me Deputy.”

Her name is something long gone, but when Rook hears it roll off Jacob’s tongue in this sleepy, husky voice, an overwhelming warmth floods into her veins.

 

-

 

Jacob wakes up with his arms around the Deputy for a second time.

She’s still asleep, he assumes, with her head tucked right under his chin. She’s shifted upwards from the night. They had gone to sleep with her face in his chest and now he can feel her breath on the base of his neck. Warm air fanning on the base of his neck.

He hates this. Hates that he could stay like this forever with her tucked against him. This fucking Deputy who nearly killed John—who _almost succeeded_ in killing John. This fucking Deputy who wants to burn his family and their people to the ground.

Hates that he’s begun to want her—to just be around her. Hates that he knows there’s no fucking way she’d want that in return. The kindness she shows him is only instinctual to the nature of her Bleeding Heart, situational to their forced proximity. Forget the fact that their on opposite sides—he’s too damaged and fucked up for anyone to genuinely want him, not to mention he’s almost twice her fucking age. Maybe not even almost, he doesn’t even know how young she is. Fuck, he doesn’t even want to know.

He hates that she’s even got him thinking about this. Wormed her way into his head with open arms and volatile eyes.

He hates.

The Deputy stirs, groans in protest of her body clock rousing her from sleep. He releases her when she shifts, shifts up on the pillow so their face to face. The sheets are a rumpled mess between them, from whatever shifting they did in their sleep the covers moved so they're barely draped over the two of them, both their feet not touching but sticking out from under the covers.

His eyes have adjusted to the dark, he doesn’t dare move to turn on the house lights because that would mean he’d have to extricate himself from their tangle of limbs. Her eyes are still closed, but a frown graces her features like she doesn’t want to wake yet but is working up to it. Jacob takes advantage of this, unabashedly stares and drinks in the details of her face.

Her eyes fucking _flutter_ open and Jacob does his best to reinforce the concrete walls shattering around him.

“Hey,” she says, blinking the sleep out of her eyes.

“Morning.”

“Is it?” Her voice is still raspy from sleep. “Can’t ever fucking tell when all we have is the bunker light.”

“You wanna get up and go switch those on then, be my guest.”

She shuts her eyes and curls up, her movements unintentionally pushing her face closer to his. “No no, I haven’t been awake long enough to do that.”

He snorts. “Lazy.”

Her eyes crack open again, face scrunching at him. “You’re closer to the light switch!”

Despite his better judgement, he leans in closer. “Yeah, but I don’t wanna move yet either.”

She chuckles at that, rolling her eyes. Jacob feels his own lips quirking up out of their own volition. Deputy stops all of a sudden and just stares at him, regarding him with curious eyes.

“What?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile before,” she says quietly, like it’s a secret between the two of them. “I mean, like a genuine one.”

He doesn’t quite know what to say to that. He suddenly feels awkward, self-conscious like she’s prying into him with just her gaze. Destroying the walls he spent so many years putting up with explosives. His gaze drops to her lips, he can’t help but stare.

Maybe she doesn’t have to break through the walls. Maybe he’ll build a door. Just for her.

He licks his lips, her eyes catch on and follow the motion. He hates this. He shouldn’t want this.

_She hurt John. She’d gladly kill you._

He can just lean in. She’s so close. Her lips are moving.

“Do you feel that?” She says.

“I—what?” Jacob rasps.

The Deputy sits up, breaking the spell. “I felt something on my foot. Like a draft.”

“Deputy—” he starts but she’s already climbing over him and jumping out of the bed. The lights snap on and Jacob winces, blinking hard.

“Behind the bookshelf—I think. Remember you moved it a bit yesterday during the, uh, fight but we never pushed it back against the wall.” She was talking fast, zipping towards the bookshelf, excited—hopeful.

Jacob sits up, scratching the back of his neck. The bookshelf, once pressed against the wall, isn’t even an inch off the wall now, but it’s definitely enough for a light draft to whistle through. The Deputy grips the sides of the bookshelf and pulls, it barely moves.

“Jacob, help me with this.”

The two of them ( _mostly Jacob_ ) manage to move the heavy bookshelf away from the wall. Sure enough, there’s a gaping hole in the wall, starting from the floor and running jaggedly up to just below Jacob’s waist. The sides of the whole and thick metal of its width are blackened, like an explosion had caused this.

“Holy shit,” breathes the Deputy, and crouches through the hole, barefoot and still in pajamas.

“Deputy, wait a second—”

“Oh my god,” her distant voice echoes excitedly from the other side. "It’s a cave! There’s water—Jacob, fucking running water!”

Listening hard, he can hear muffled echoes of rushing water—just barely there. He follows through the hole, crouching low due to his height. Halfway through he finds a note on the ground.

_‘Broke my way out of the bunker. If I follow the river I’ll make it out._

_Shit. I can’t pass this way. Had to come back because that cult’s stupid angels all over the place. I’m no fighter. I’ll never get through the angels. Better luck grappling up to the old mine and passing through that way._

_Should cover the hole with something inside so the angels don’t find their way in.’_

“Dep, get back inside!” He calls out to her and moves back into the bunker, note clutched in his hand.

The Deputy crouches back in seconds later, eyes wide and excited, goosebumps running up and down her arms and legs. “Fuck, it’s cold in there. I think it started storming outside or something—something with strong winds that swept into the cave? That’s gotta be why we never felt a draft before.”

He holds the old note out to her. “Look.”

He watches her eyes dart around the page. She’s practically buzzing with this taste of freedom. “Okay—okay, shit ton of angels. That’s fine. Nothing we can’t handle. Poor guy, thought he’d better off climbing with his shitty gear.”

“We should take some supplies from the bunker with us when we go. Don’t know how long that cave goes on for,” Jacob says.

She nods enthusiastically and starts moving down the bunker. “I’m gonna go get dressed, and then we get the fuck outta here!”

“Yeah, good plan.” Jacob swallows hard. He’s glad, they’ve finally found their way out. They’ll be done of this soon and go their separate ways. Or try to kill each other again. He doesn’t dwell on it.

He hates the dull feeling of disappointment tightening in his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whew, so this chapter took a turn i didn't quite plan in the beginning.
> 
> originally i had this set to 10 chapters, but i've removed that because honestly i'm not so sure anymore. could be anywhere between 13-16 chapters if i'm able to follow through with my plan?
> 
> also i just wanna say i think the response i've gotten from you guys is awesome! i really didn't expect this much! thanks y'all <3


	5. Chapter 5

The air in the cave is damp and cold with a tinge of Bliss wafting into her nose. Rook breathes it in deep anyway, just happy to be out of the bunker’s stale, filtered air.

Geared up and ready to _get the fuck out_ , Jacob and Rook start down the natural tunnel of the cave, Rook leading the way. They even found brand new batteries in the bunker for their flashlights, so this time they didn’t have to worry about losing themselves in the dark.

“There’s a drop up ahead,” Rook says, the sound of rushing water getting closer with every step. “Some of the rocks jut out in a kind of natural staircase, we’ve gotta jump for it.”

Jacob doesn’t say anything, but when she throws a glance at him trailing behind her he gives a stiff nod. The backpack he carries with rations and extra climbing gear, combined with his signature red rifle slung around it manages to dwarf him slightly, it’s a little dorky actually, and Rook bites her lip and turns back to the continuing tunnel just so he doesn’t see her suppress a grin.

It’s an interesting predicament she’s in, trying not to chuckle as big bad Jacob Seed lugs around all their stuff for them in a big backpack when not even a week ago she would have gladly put a bullet between his eyes.

_Wouldn’t you still do it, after this? Wouldn’t you still take out him and his family like you promised the Resistance? Like you promised your friends, whose lives have been ruined by the Seeds? By the man walking behind you? The man you’ve been sleeping next to?_

Rook lets out a heavy exhale, as if to expel this interrogation from her head. She doesn't think about how she had actually considered closing the gap between their lips in bed this morning. Nope, she fucking doesn't. It was just the cabin fever.

_When this is over, would you still kill him? Would you?_

Reaching the drop, Rook is thankful for underground river roaring below them, silencing the stupid, logical voice in her head.

It’s not a long way down—definitely not as long as the drop from the mine to the bunker. They could swim it, maybe, but aside from how fucking cold it would be the torrent of water is also crashing violently against the cave walls. Their best bet would be to carefully climb down and follow along the higher platform of rock flanking it.

The rocks are slippery when she steadily lowers herself down the ledge. Jacob follows in suit, keeping a wary eye at the water rushing just 10 feet below.

“Scared?” Rook jests weakly over the roar of the water, mostly to calm her own nerves.

“ _Cautious_. One slip up is all it takes,” Jacob huffs back at her, his tone almost lecturing.

On a particularly far leap down, Rook stumbles on the slippery, uneven stone, arms windmilling as she regains her balance.

“Watch it.” Jacob barks from the previous ledge above and Rook thinks she hears an edge of panic in his voice.

“Careful coming down. It’s uh...” Rook says, stepping back slowly and carefully on the wet rock. “Slippery.”

“Never would have guessed,” Jacob hums sarcastically. From the ledge above, he braces himself for a second, adjusts the strap of the hiking backpack, and steps off. His landing isn’t as clumsy as Rook’s, but he weighs a lot more compared to her—with their combined weight on the rock she swears she feels a small tremor when his boots hit the stone.

His boots slip across the stone for a second while he hunches over to balance, Rook finds herself reaching out to help steady him while his own hand flies out and squeezes into her bicep. There’s a sound of crunching earth when Jacob’s skid comes to a stop, and it paralyzes her for a second, shuts her eyes wincing and bracing herself for whatever’s going to follow.

But nothing happens, and Rook opens her eyes. Jacob’s let go of her, standing up straight now, but she’s still got her hands on his arms, practically clutching them for dear life. He’s staring at her, an amused crinkle of crow’s feet scrunching at his eyes. She promptly lets her hands drop back to dangle uselessly at her sides and tucks a loose hair behind her ear.

“That was close,” she mutters. “I thought this ledge was gonna brea—”

The platform they stand on crumbles beneath their feet, she vaguely registers Jacob exclaiming _shit!_ before everything happens. One second they’re standing on solid ground, and the next the both of them are in the air, free-falling alongside the fragments of the ledge.

She really, from the bottom of her heart, _fucking hates_ caves.

Rook hits the water hard and is immediately swept by the rampaging current, able to take one gasp of air before she’s dragged under. She fights ( _doesn’t know what she’s fighting, it’s fucking water_ )—kicks and throws out her arms, doing anything to slow down and grab onto something steady.

The few times she’s able to come up for air she spots Jacob—red hair darkened by the water splashing into him, his teeth are grit in a furious expression of concentration, the light clipped onto his jacket blinks in and out of the water as he braces himself in the current, almost like the flashlight trying to tell her something in morse code. Nonsense probably, like the nonsense and panic running through her head as she notices that the stalagmites up ahead.

God, she really fucking hates caves.

Stalagmites mean two things. She could possibly latch onto one if she’s able to—hug the damn thing while she figures out what the hell she’s going to do—or she could easily become a pinball, barreling into one stalagmite formation after another, until she eventually slams her head into one of them and drowns.

“Dep!” Jacob’s voice echoes of the roar of the river. She twists herself around in the water to look at him. He sinks down slightly when he reaches out with one long arm and points somewhere towards the stalagmites that are getting closer and closer. “Over there! Get to the rocks!”

It takes a few tries for her to kick herself upwards, trying to look past and over the approaching stalagmite. “I see it!”

Somewhere among the mess of stalagmite, a formation of rocks congregate together, roughly sloping up into a little island against the wall. If they grab hold of the stalagmite, they can probably use them to venture against the current, moving from one to another, and reach the little island.

Rook collides hard with one jagged formation of stalagmite. She wraps her arms around it the second she hits it, ignoring the pain in her chest from slamming into it. Torrents of water pull at her, splashing into her eyes and up her nose like it’s trying to pry her off her anchor.

Jacob floats by fast, his back slamming into the stalagmite next to her. He twists around and grabs hold of it before he’s too far away. His hair has flopped down, sticking to his face, beard drooping. His teeth are chattering, and when Rook sees that she realizes that she’s shivering too. They have to get out of the water before the adrenaline's gone and they start to feel the cold that’s seeping into their bones.

“See something interesting?” He remarks through gritted teeth at her wide, alert eyes. Water splashes against his scarred face. He jerks his head towards the little island. “Keep fucking moving.”

“Right, right.” Rook breathes and angles herself toward the little island. She loosens her grip around the coned pillar and reaches out towards the next stalagmite. She fights against the tug of the water when she throws herself at it, securing her grasp around it. Her smaller, waterlogged backpack is feeling heavier and heavier.

With a deep breath, she throws herself at the rocks, heart jumping out her chest for a moment when she slips off but immediately latches onto another crevice in the stone, curling her fingers into it. She hauls herself up, and drops onto the uneven surface of the rock island, coughing up some water she swallowed before.

Rook watches Jacob move for the rock island next, already on the closest stalagmite. She shrugs off her bag, leaves her rifle still looped around her torso. With the extra weight gone, she maneuvers herself without issue towards the edge, sticking an arm out for Jacob.

He can’t reach her, their fingers just clawing at empty air a few inches apart from each other.

“Come on, Jacob, come on, come on,” Rook grits out, if she tries to reach any further she’s gonna slip off. “You have to jump for it!”

She watches as Jacob’s jaw sets, his muscle tense as he readies himself, then pushes off the stalagmite and lunges for her hand—only for him to be pulled backwards, bumping the back of his head back on the stalagmite as he hangs on by the backpack chewing into his shoulders.

She doesn’t hear his swear over the torrents of water, but she sees his mouth move into a frustrated _fuck_ as he twists through the straps. The backpack is caught somehow on the stalagmite, tearing a hole into it. While Jacob struggles she can see some of their food rations float past him lightning fast on the foamy surface of the water.

“Leave it!” Rook shouts.

“You—don’t think—I’m—fucking trying!”

Just then she swears she can hear a loud tear of the bag’s canvas material over the river, and suddenly the bag—still trapping one of Jacob’s shoulders—is loose and starting to float along the current, taking Jacob with it.

Without thinking, Rook reaches out on the very edge of the rocks and grabs Jacob’s outstretched arm, his fingers digging into her wrist. She’s able to pull him for a second, her nails digging into the skin of his wrist as she tugs him against the current—but the river’s too strong. The rocks are slippery, and the force of the current pulls her off the rocks and back into the water, narrowly missing Jacob as she lands face first in a splash.

She tumbles underwater, the current pushing and pulling her before she can right herself. Squinting in the cold, cold water, she faintly sees a pair of textured hands, stark pale skin contrasting the dark cave water, frantically grasping at empty space, searching for something— _someone_. She tries to reach out for Jacob, wondering if he’ll pull her up or if she’ll just drag him down with her, and then the back of her head collides with something _hard_.

 

-

 

Everything aches.

Rook feels like a pile of laundry, carelessly thrown into the washing machine set on _cold_ and left to be thrown around in a relentless force of water. Forgetfully neglected after the cycle is over, left to just lie there, chilly and waterlogged.

She’s still in water, but she can feel that she’s lying on solid ground. A bed of smaller, eroded rocks. She feels water surging up from her lungs to her throat and turns over to cough it all out, wheezing slightly when she's done ejecting the misplaced water from her system. She opens her eyes and sits up a little too fast, squeezing her eyes shut again and holding onto her head as the world spins for a moment.

“Fucking hate caves,” she whispers, opening her eyes again when she feels the vertigo settle.

She’s in a smaller cave chamber, in front of her she sees a way leading out back into the river, water flowing into the cave at a pace less urgent than the river itself but still enough to carry through here, the current dissipating as it carries further into the expanse and shallow depth of the chamber.

_The river must have spat us out here while I was unconscious_. How long was she out for? She tensed suddenly, remembering. _Us. Where the fuck is Jacob?_

More importantly, what fucking _right_ does she have being worried over this. Over _him_.

Rook stands up, soaked to the bone, feeling so, so heavy. Her rifle is gone, her bag she left behind on the rock island. All she has is her flashlight still clipped to her jacket, her handgun, and a few throwing knives. She trudges along the shallow end, water pooling at her ankles. She shines her flashlight around, notes points of interest.

The way back out to the _cursed_ river that way, a promising crevice in the wall to maybe squeeze through over there, a weird lump on the ground over there— _Jacob_.

The water splashes at Rook’s boots as she crosses the short distance to his limp body. He’s laid down with his face in the ground, just enough into the shallow end that water isn’t at his face for him to drown in.

That is, if he hasn’t already drowned. With _a lot_ of effort, Rook manages to flip him onto his back, tipping his face towards the ceiling instead of the stones beneath him. She places the flat of one of her throwing knives by his nostrils, exhaling in relief when she sees breath on its surface. It’s faint, with intervals too long between them, but it’s there. Barely breathing, but alive.

Conflicting emotions gnaw at her. _Why are you relieved? This would have been so much easier if he just did the world a favor and died._

_Shut up shut up shut up._

“Jacob.” God, her voice is so hoarse from the shouting. She shakes him, feeling like this situation is all too familiar. “Jacob, wake up.”

He doesn’t move.

She shakes him again harder, Christ, he’s heavy. “Jacob, Jacob, fucking _wake up_ you’re not fucking dying here.”

Should she—should she start doing compressions or something?

She pats his face lightly, then harder when he still doesn’t respond. “Come on you fucking asshole, _wake up!_ ”

A shudder wracks Jacob’s entire body, and suddenly he's coughing, tilts his head to the side and coughs the water out of his lungs. Jacob’s eyes snap open, pupils constricted, like pinpricks, showing too much blue blue blue and he _snarls_. He moves on autopilot, almost knocking Rook to the ground when he flies up at an inhuman speed. He’s not looking at her. In fact, he’s not looking anywhere, just glaring at invisible enemies with his teeth snapping like a fucking predator.

Rook reaches up and grabs firmly onto his shoulders, nails digging into fabric as she tries to steady him in this daze. “Jacob, hey, hey! It’s fine, no one’s trying to hurt you! Come back, come on come back!”

He’s stopped moving, but he’s still looking around, moving his head so quickly she thinks he might get whiplash. He reaches around for his sniper rifle, miraculously still strapped on his back after the merciless river.

Her hand clamps down around the cold skin of his wrist, stopping him from drawing his weapon. “No, hey, no. You don’t need that, come on. Come back to me, Jacob. _Jacob._ ”

His hand relaxes but he’s still looking past her, through her, too-blue eyes still searching for a threat that isn’t there. He’s breathing heavy, face still scrunched up in a snarl, still ready for a battle.

Rook moves her hand from his wrist to his face, gently pressing a palm to his cheek while her other hand still steadied him on his shoulder. It was odd, not what she expected—the skin against her hand is canvased with pockmarks and craters of what she’s guessed as some kind of burn, but the scars are soft, mingling with the rough texture of his undamaged skin. His beard is still damp at the base of her palm, but she can feel the fluff of it returning.

“Come back to me,” she says quietly when his breathing slows down, “You’re okay, back in reality.”

Rook lightly grazes his cheekbone with her thumb as he comes back to his senses, her death grip on his shoulder loosening when his chest has stopped heaving and his eyes _see_ again, locking onto hers. There’s an intensity to his gaze that Rook can’t read, it has her feeling _too much_ and she retreats back, her hand leaving his face and the only thing against her palm is cold, empty air.

“You good?” she asks, suddenly feeling small. He’s still _staring_ at her and it makes her stomach knot, feeling so self-conscious of _everything_ that she has to tear her eyes away and breathe.

When she glances back at him, he finally nods, voice just as hoarse as hers when he speaks. “Yeah. Fine.”

“Okay,” Rook breathes. She sticks her thumb over her shoulder. “Think I saw a gap in the wall. Over there. That, um, we can pass through… if we’re ready to go?”

Jacob steps forward—closer, looms over her—and his eyebrows knit together like he’s considering something, his shoulders tensing up. She’s never seen him look this uncertain. Then the expression in his eyes harden. He clears his throat, his voice coming out gravelly. “Yeah, let’s—let’s go.”

Rook nods curtly and heads towards where she saw the crevice. It’s not a big gap, but they both manage to make it through. The second Rook crosses over she notices that this is probably where they would have ended up if the platform hadn’t collapsed on them and dumped them into the river.

It’s a spacious cave tunnel. There are empty, destroyed Bliss tanks scattered around, but the Bliss that would have contaminated the air is gone, probably wafted out this area. She can still smell traces of it in the air, but it’s not enough Bliss to throw her off.

“Angels should be close by,” says Jacob, voice hushed, idly kicking away a broken shovel with the toe of his boot.

Rook wishes she had more than just her handgun and a handful of knives. Angels are hard to put down, the goddamn brain scrambled pincushions they are.

Jacob leads, rifle in tow. Rook finds herself staring at the faded scars creeping up his nape and behind his ears. The scars look like they’ve faded a little more than the ones on his face, definitely more than the angry splotches on his arms. From afar they just look like terrible acne scars, but the more you look the more uncertain you’d be. The scars were definitely softer than she had imagined, when she touched his face—even the ones on his arms, from the times she’s grabbed his bare forearms the skin has been rough and textured but still softer to the touch than she had thought.

Rook catches herself staring and immediately drops her eyes to the ground, chewing on her lip and frowning at herself. She shouldn’t get attached. _Too late_.

Lost in her own inner conflict, she doesn’t notice when Jacob halts and walks right into him. She jumps back quickly. “Shit, sorry.”

Jacob tenses and she can’t tell if it’s from the unexpected physical contact or an approaching threat when he crouches low and motions for Rook to do the same.

Over his shoulder, she can see a cloudy haze of light green shimmering in the beam of their flashlights. _Shit_. From the look on Jacob’s face, Rook assumes he’s not a fan of his sister’s Bliss either.

They scuttle forward and she almost misses Jacob whispering, “Hear that?”

_“Shield me from sadness from worry and madness worry and madness worry and madness—”_

_“Darkness descends darkness descends darkness descends—_ ”

_“—lead me to the Bliss! From worry and madness—”_

Strings of distorted lyrics and fragmented sermons stumble out of the garbled mouths of angels, mumbling to themselves so fast they lose track and repeat repeat repeat. The coppery stench of blood, sweat, and Bliss mingle in the air in a repulsing concoction. Rook wrinkles her nose.

“How many?” Rook whispers. She hears at least three.

Jacob leans out from the wall they’ve huddled by. “Five. No, six.”

“Shit.” She only has four throwing knives. Her gun would be too loud, so would Jacob’s. One shot and the angels would be on them in a second. Jacob’s thinking the same thing, because he’s slinging his rifle over his shoulder and unsheathing his combat knife.

With a shared nod they both get moving. Jacob sneaks up towards the closest angel, swiftly wraps a strong arm around the angel’s shoulders and draws a deep, red line along their neck. He clamps down on their masked mouth when they struggle as the blood fountains out. Another one, a woman with the palest skin Rook’s ever seen turns around, and Rook sends two knives at her head before she can react to the bloody angel in Jacob’s arms. Both bodies fall at the same time with dual thumps in the ground. Jacob moves onto the next angel while Rook approaches the pale angel she felled to retrieve her knives.

Fuck, there must be some fresh Bliss tanks around ( _which explains the fuckin’ angels_ ) because the claustrophobic cave air is sickly sweet with Bliss now that they’ve ventured further, making Rook feel light and disoriented and _fucked up_. It’s stronger and heavier than the remnant breezes of Bliss cruising in the air around the two angels they killed. She’s gotta focus twice as much now with this shit muddling her head.

With the way the heavy layers of Bliss visibly hang in the air, there’s something almost otherworldly about the way Jacob sneaks closer to the next angel, weaving in and out of varying densities of mint green Bliss clouds. The angel is hunched facing the wall, twitching and mumbling _the lights will all go out but we’ll finally see we’ll finally finally see—_ and then Jacob’s huge silhouette engulfs the angel, red hair feathering out of a Bliss cloud as a body falls to the ground.

Rook despises the Bliss, the way it swallows up her senses, but she can begrudgingly admit that it drapes a blanket of awe over everything. Watching Jacob move like an aberration, expertly disposing of angels in the soft atmosphere the Bliss provides is like art, unearthly.

She blinks hard, takes a deep breath in attempt to clear her mind but just ends up inhaling more Bliss. Every little sound echoes in her ears. She drags her limbs forward and sneaks towards an angel with a shovel, he’s scraping the shovelhead noisily along the ground as he hobbles aimlessly into the Bliss.

She lunges silently at him, clamping her hands on either side of his shaved head and snapping his neck in a sharp motion. She catches the shovel before it falls out of the angel’s hands. She can work with this.

Rook squints through the shimmering haze, luckily able to catch the movement of an angel approaching Jacob while he’s busy taking out another. The angel sputters as it begins to notice Jacob, but Rook’s denting its head in with the shovel before any more noise is made.

Jacob’s hand shoots out and grabs her upper arm, yanking her towards him as a knifepoint slick with fresh blood rushes towards her. She gasps out a _whoa_ and pushes the flat of the shovel against his chest, metal surface colliding with the surface of his dog tags with a _clank_ , and the knife stops centimeters away from her neck. Jacob towers over her splattered with blood and a feral look in his eyes, pupils dilated and Blissed out. He falters for a moment, focusing. His head is as muddled as hers right now.

He blinks, shoulders relaxing and sighs, hot breath fanning across her face. He lowers the knife and releases her like he’s been burned.

“Goddamn Bliss,” he whispers.

Before Rook can say anything, the angel she had whacked on the head with a shovel is on his feet again, rusted knife in hand and howling.

“Oh fuck!” She hisses out and slams his bald head with the shovel again, this time she hears the snap of a neck and knows he won’t be getting back up.

“Deputy,” Jacob says at full volume.

The hairs on the back of her neck stand. That angel had made _a lot_ of noise and there’s only one reason why Jacob wouldn’t be trying to keep quiet anymore. When she turns around, she doesn’t know if it’s the Bliss or the spike of adrenaline but the world seems to move in slow-motion.

Rook drops the shovel and pulls out her handgun, Jacob’s sheathing his knife and saying something to her but she hears nothing but the encroaching dread in his voice.

Out of the dark corners of the caves, out of the piles of thought-to-be corpses ( _of the cult and resistance alike_ ), out of the minted clouds of Bliss, she hears guttural roars and the unsettling sound of bare feet slapping onto stone. _A lot_ of angels are running at the two of them and the world kicks back into real-time.

“That’s a lot more than six angels!” Rook exclaims, shifting on her feet and readying herself.

“M’gonna have _words_ with Faith after this,” Jacob says darkly and aims his rifle.

He shoots down three of them. Rook empties an entire clip taking out two. _Fuck_. Her ammo was in her bag. Long gone.

An angel tackles her down when she puts away her useless gun, breath knocking out of her when she hits the ground. She hears Jacob shooting at more of them, but the bodies dropping in her peripherals are less than the number of shots he’s taking.

She wrestles against the angel as she tries to drive her rusty knife into Rook’s eye. She hears Jacob take another shot and the angel on top of her falls limp with a bullet in her brain. With the lifeless angel still straddling Rook, she takes a chance on a quick glance at Jacob. He’s swearing as he tries to reload his rifle but two angels reach him before he can even remember his ammo’s long gone as well.

Rook rolls the corpse off of her, and takes the fallen knife—drives it into an angels neck and trades her knife for the hammer he holds. She rushes towards Jacob and pulls one of the angels off him with a grunt and hits her one, two, three times till the female angel’s empty, glazed eyes resemble crushed berries.

She’s about to help Jacob with the other angel on him when a tan angel roars out of nowhere and hits her shoulder _hard_ with a shovel, throwing her off her balance and landing near some flooding containers of Bliss.

The pain from, well, _everything_ dulls the second her head is dunked into the flooding cloud of Bliss. She breathes it all in, feels it cool on her skin and different colors swim behind her eyes when she blinks. A shovel descends on her, emerging from all the _green_ and she barely dodges it in time. It feels like forever when her arms surge out to tug at the shovel, and she feels the angel tugging it back.

Rook feels like she can’t breathe—she needs to get away from this concentrated Bliss. She pulls down hard on the shovel and it ends up slipping out of both their hands when the angel stumbles and falls on her.

She’s ready for it, she grabs onto the angel’s shoulders and flips around so she’s straddling her. Rook cradles the tan angel’s face in her hands—for a brief moment she thinks that she’s quite pretty, wonders who this girl was before Faith got to her—and then smashes her head against the bumpy cave floor. She hears a _crack_ but the angel’s still snarling, so Rook smashes her head again and again and again till she sees blood pooling on the ground and the girl has gone still.

Rook rolls off the dead girl. She catches her breath for a moment—Bliss still thick, choppy waves in her head. Her elbow bumps something metal and cold. Turning her head, she sees a dead cultist facedown on the ground, by her elbow is his rifle still clutched in his hands.

She heaves herself up and pries the gun out of the corpse’s hands. Standing to her full height, wincing at the vertigo of leaving the Bliss container quickly and scans the cave. Four angels left—three who haven’t noticed her hobbling towards Jacob while he wrestles on the ground with another.

Jacob’s on his back, wrestling off an angel who’s decided to neglect the weapons scattered around them and takes to snapping his teeth dangerously close to Jacob’s throat—full fucking zombie mode.

Rook wipes some of the blood she feels dripping down her face—must be from angels because she doesn’t feel any stinging cuts when she smears the blood off her cheekbones. She squares her shoulders and lines the angels up in her sights, deafening gunfire echoing through the cave as she riddles the angels with bullets.

Two of the standing angels fall and the one snapping his teeth down and Jacob collapses on him. _God these things are fucking bullet sponges_. The last angel standing is bleeding badly but still sprinting at her with full force.

She squeezes the trigger again, but all that happens is an empty _click_. Rook swears and tosses the rifle to the ground, just in time to brace herself when the angel reaches her. He swipes at her with his knife, and Rook just barely dodges it. She grabs his wrist with the knife and wrestles against his arm—thankful that this angel isn’t as strong as Jacob.

Rook thinks she’s almost gotten the angel to drop his knife when two big hands clamp down on the angel’s shoulders from behind and tears him away from her. Suddenly Jacob’s in front of her, throwing the growling angel to the ground and bringing his boot down on its head with a snarl.

There’s a sickening _crunch_ as Jacob caves the angel’s head in. Jacob brings his boot down another time, then another, then another, until there’s blood and brains splattered on his boots and pant-leg.

The clumpy mess that lies at his feet is hardly recognizable as a human head.

“Thanks,” Rook says, panting lightly.

“Are you hurt?” He asks, voice rumbling in his chest. Jacob’s suddenly closer now, hand steady on her shoulder while his other hand delicately holds her by the chin and tips her head back and forth, brushing her hair back and then checking her neck. There’s a wild, desperate look the blue eyes that sweep over her, checking for injury.

“I’m fine.” Rook bats his hands away gently, resorting to holding them holding them in a clumsy grasp when he won’t stop assessing her. Both their hands are sweaty and grimy—Rook's are even covered in blood, but the mess of it doesn’t stop her from tightening her grip around his much larger hands to stop his fretting. _Fretting. Jacob Seed. Fretting. I must be more Bliss scrambled than I thought._ “A little battered, but I’m in one piece. You?”

Something catches in his throat when he looks down at their hands. Adam’s apple bobbing underneath his blood-flecked beard. “I’m—think I’m okay. Hard to tell with all this fucking Bliss. Can’t feel a damn thing.”

He squeezes her hands, and Rook hopes he doesn’t feel her fucking pulse spike. _It’s just the Bliss having an effect on you. Just the fucking Bliss._

Rook takes her turn in assessing him. It’s hard to pull her gaze away from his face—angel blood settling into his beard and scars, the marbly blue-purple of a black eye beginning to blossom on his left side, but face otherwise unharmed ( _ignore the relief, IGNORE IT_ ). Then her eyes zero in on a fucking shard of metal sticking out of his shoulder, piercing through the front of his jacket and shirt.

At first she thinks it’s a knife, but the irregular edge to it and green finish indicates it’s a fragment of a Bliss tank.

“ _You’re_ not okay. Holy shit, Jacob.”

Jacob looks down at his shoulder, as if he’s noticing it for the first time.

“It’s not too bad,” he says, unimpressed.

Rook raises her eyebrows all the way up. “Yeah it’s probably not anything vital but that’s gonna hurt like a bitch when the adrenaline and Bliss wear off.”

She reaches up to prod at the obtrusion, it’s stuck in there good. “Is it deep?”

“Can’t tell.” Jacob shrugs, and Rook watches the movement cause more blood to seep into his jacket.

Rook grabs his arm and starts steering him down the tunnel, eager to continue out of the cave and get out of the Bliss. “Come on, let’s go—we’ll cauterize that or something.”

“With what? You just gonna magic a fire in the palm of your hand?” He growls, tensing up. Rook feels like an asshole. _Shit. Right. He probably wouldn’t like burning his skin some more._

“Actually, there might be...” Rook leaves Jacob’s side, going over to the bodies of dead Resistance members. After some good ol’ looting she finds not only finds a medkit but a rifle and some ammunition too. She slings the rifle over her shoulder and holds up the medkit so Jacob can see.

“We can patch you up with this, but first let’s get the fuck away from this shit.” She gestures to the Bliss in the air, shimmery green clouds stirring around her fingers

“Wait,” Jacob says, clutching his shoulder as he starts towards some angel corpses. “My rifle—”

Rook stays him with a firm hand on his chest, pushing him back slightly. “Don’t move like that. I’ll get it.”

It’s not hard to spot among the bleached lump of angel bodies. The signature red sniper rifle sticks out among the scene like a sore thumb. She slings it around her shoulder; it clunks awkwardly against the other rifle she picked up.

She pulls Jacob away from the Bliss barrels by his jacket sleeve. “I never wanna go near Bliss again.”

 

-

 

“Okay, this is gonna hurt.”

“It already hurts. Just fucking do it, Deputy.”

Rook counts to three in her head and pulls the metal shard out of his shoulder. It’s not as bad as she thought, just a few inches deep. Jacob hisses through his clenched teeth and leans his head back on the cave wall. She _doesn’t_ watch his throat as he swallows hard.

_For fuck’s sake he’s bleeding from a stab wound and you’re ogling?_

They’re far away from the angel massacre now, no Bliss in sight or mind. On their way, Jacob felt the wound’s pain more and more when the Bliss and adrenaline high finally faded away. They had walked for a good ten minutes until Jacob grit out a _just fucking patch me up here_ and slumped down against the wall.

“Okay, it’s not too bad,” Rook soothes. She’s kneeling next to him, with her boots propping her up higher so that she hovers slightly above his fatigued, legs outstretched form for a better angle.

Jacob winces and exhales sharply as he shrugs his arm out of his jacket, revealing a blood-soaked black henley. Their clothes are just about dry from the river, but patches have stayed damp from blood and sweat, Jacob’s bloody henley is no exception.

Rook picks up one of her throwing knives. “I’m gonna have to—”

“It’s just a shirt, Deputy.”

Rook pulls at the fabric and slices at the hole from the stab wound, tearing it open so she’s got room to work. Now with substantially ruining his henley she’s exposed a good amount of his shoulder and pec, and sees the ugly stab wound leaking blood into small patches of curly red hair growing from scars. The scars she can see aren’t as bad as the ones on his arms, but the skin is still more severe than his face.

She opens up the medkit and wipes away some of the blood around the wound, then douses it in alcohol. Jacob hisses sharply at the sterile sting.

It’s quiet when Rook starts stitching the wound closed. The rhythm of Jacob’s breathing adding a slow, steady pace to task.

She’s halfway through stitching the wound when Jacob breathes out a heavy sigh and tilts his head forward, his forehead coming to lean on her shoulder, just breathing. It’s a terrifyingly intimate gesture that almost has Rook dropping the suturing kit—but she manages to keep her cool, steadying her fingers around the needle as her heart beats at a rabbit’s pace.

“Almost done,” she says quietly, voice just above a whisper. What goddamn right do her emotions have acting up like this around him? She tries to calm the burn rising in her skin, thankful his head is down so he can’t see whatever blush is working its way up her face.

She finishes stitching and has to move to get the bandage. Jacob must sense this because he raises his head slowly and rests it back against the wall, keeping those icy blue eyes on her the whole time.

She douses the stitches in alcohol for good measure then reaches for the bandages. She tears open the medium-sized bandage sachet, peeling off the adhesive edges and gently places its puffy surface on the stitched up would.

Rook closes up the medkit and meets Jacob’s eyes. He’s got that unreadable, fucking enigmatic expression on again. Though this time there’s a hardness to the look like he’s trying to hold back from something, caught in some kind of web. He shrugs the jacket sleeve back on and stands with an exhausted grunt to start down the tunnel again, leaving a cold, empty space next to Rook.

It’s quiet, so dangerously quiet—even when Rook hands him back his sniper rifle when while they walk, the exchange is completely silent. It’s like neither of them dares to make a sound. Otherwise, it would wake something.

What it is exactly—she has a hunch that stirs her rabbit heart and makes her feel so, so guilty.

 

-

 

Sunlight. There’s sunlight bathing the cave wall.

They’re here—end of the goddamn line. All they have to do is turn the bend of the tunnel and it’ll be all fresh air and freedom.

They’ve been quiet the whole time, walking side by side in a heavy silence since she’d stitched him up. Would they part in silence too? Refuse to acknowledge of this whole Thing that has happened to them?

Jacob rounds on her, blocking her path from the bend. Stunned at the sudden movement Rook backs up a bit, only for him to follow forward, stepping into her space until she feels her back meet the cool surface of the cave wall.

“What are you doing?” Rook frowns, gesturing with one hand at the sunlit wall behind him. “The way out’s right there. We’ll finally be out of here.”

She looks up, instantly regretting meeting his eyes. There’s that same fucking intensity in those blue eyes from when she’d woken him after the river. The gaze that smothers Rook with feelings she refuses to grant the time of day. The burning, pale blue eyes of Jacob Jacob Jacob searing into her head.

If she shuts her eyes, she’s pretty sure she’ll see after-images of that gaze, burned into her the back of her eyelids.

“What’s your plan, Deputy?” He sounds like he’s swallowed a mouthful of gravel, scratching up his voice and reverberating in his chest.

“My… plan?”

“You gonna kill me? Let me go? Knock me out and drag me to the Whitetails with a pretty bow on my head?”

Rook shakes her head. “I’m not—I haven’t—I haven’t thought that far ahead. I don’t know.”

Jacob’s so close to her now, leaning down into her personal space. His gaze drops down to her neck and she feels his fingers graze the fading handprint bruises of his grasp. Slowly, he mimics the bruise, caging her neck in his hand again—but this time there’s hardly a pressure on her throat, just a featherlight graze of fingertips on her skin that makes her shiver at the touch.

“What’s _your_ plan?” Rook says, trying and failing to add some venom to her voice. His eyes snap back from her throat to her face. “You gonna kill me _now?_ Or brainwash me? Throw me in a cage and make me kill innocent people?”

The hand around her throat lightly nudges her, his thumb encouraging her chin to tip up towards him. Clenching a fist on his jacket sleeve, she does so, barely breathing.

He leans in toward her ear, beard scratching her cheek. “Y’know what? I don’t fucking know either.”

“Then what do we do now?”

Jacob draws back from her ear, stops right in front of her, so close she can feel his breath on her face. He stares down at her lips, slightly parted. His hand moves up to cradle her jaw, leaving the skin of her throat crackling underneath. He drags his thumb up from her chin, moving to slowly ghost over her bottom lip. Calloused skin grazing over soft, chapped lip.

Rook holds her breath.

Then there’s a loud _CRACK_ of a gunshot outside the cave. Striking down this quiet moment with a sledgehammer, both of them flinching and turning their heads towards the direction of the sound.

Jacob pulls away, back in defensive mode, readying his sniper rifle in his hands. Rook tugs at the strap around her chest and draws her own rifle toward her hands, striding towards the tunnel’s bend.

Sunlight soaks into her skin, the warm light pleasant and welcome on her face. She stops when she sees Bliss containers, sealed. A lot of them, more than she’s ever seen, stacked uniformly in the mouth of the cave, even some stacked on the grass outside.

Her first thought is _oh shit Peggies_ but then she sees a group of people gathered outside the gave. They’re not Eden’s Gate, but they don’t seem to be Resistance either. These people are uniformed, yellow striped decals on jackets, shirts, and body armor.

One of them emerges from the trees, pulling a pronghorn carcass along behind them. That must have been the gunshot they heard.

“What the fuck?” Rook looks at Jacob. “These your people?”

“No,” he replies, brows furrowed and mouth set in a grim line. “These look like mercenaries.”

There’s the sound of a gun cocking and Rook turns to see a mercenary pointing a shotgun straight at the two of them. “Just who the fuck are you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yikes long chapter of like 7k words!! oops. also i'm not an expert on cave structure so if there's anyone here who saw a shit ton of geological inaccuracies and suffered i'm sorry i just wanted to make things dramatic for these two idiots
> 
> catch me pulling a far cry 3 and (SPOILERS) randomly introducing a new faction, but in this case for me it's really just plot device


	6. Chapter 6

The late afternoon sun beats down on Rook, spreading warmth into her cold bones. It’s the only comfort Rook has at the moment. A mercenary’s gloved hands are twisting her arms behind her back, roughly pushing her towards the encampment by the cave.

“I can walk myself,” Jacob sneers somewhere close behind her. There’s a rustle of fabric like he’s trying to shrug the mercs off. _If he struggles he’s gonna pull his stitches_. She glances back and sees two mercenaries—one holding Jacob’s arms back the same way Rook’s are and the other roughly guiding him the same direction as her, fresh blood leaking out of his nose into his mustache—then a gloved hand is forcefully shoving her head forward and down.

Jacob had tried to fight the lone mercenary the two of them stumbled upon a few minutes ago, holding up his gun ready to attack when a couple other mercenaries had appeared from behind. One of them cracked Jacob across the face with the butt of his gun. The mercenaries took their weapons right after that, frisking the two of them with no care of whether or not they were injured.

“Take ‘em to Fischer,” says the mercenary who’s confiscated their weapons. They all have ballistic masks on the lower half of their faces, obscuring their identities.

Rook feels something slipped around her wrists, sharp plastic edges biting into skin when the mercenary tightens it. Zip-tie. She chances another glance at Jacob, locking eyes with him—he’s gotten the same treatment.

A mercenary shoves her forward. “Move.”

With a huff, she walks on.

Fischer’s tall, not taller than Jacob but still close to towering over Rook. Looks like he’s in his mid-50s, older than Jacob by—god, she doesn’t want to think about it. He’s leaner than most of the mercenaries and is the only one without a mask, showing his pointy stubbled jaw and receding hairline to the world. Olive skin, unkempt dirty blond hair, and grey eyes that scrutinize Rook. He squeezes at Rook’s face, fingers digging into her cheeks. “Been a while since we’ve run into stragglers.”

Then those squinty grey eyes drift to Jacob, the fingers leave Rook’s face. He clutches Jacob’s face—who growls at the contact—and scrutinizes the hair, the scars. “Holy shit. You’re one of the Seeds, aren’t ya?”

“Have you been living under a rock?” Rook remarks, huffing a loose strand of hair out of her face.

The merc next to her shoves her hard. “Shut up.”

“Heard you were dead. Big win for _The Resistance_.” Fischer ignores her, still addressing Jacob and letting go of his face. His mouth curls around _Resistance_ like he’s in on a joke. His eyes flit to Rook then back to Jacob. “So who’s your girlfriend?”

“I’m not—”

“Shut. Up.” The same mercenary says again, this time backhanding her across the face. _Ow._ Her face stings as she glares daggers at the merc.

“Clearly I’m not dead.” Jacob glares down at Fischer, cold and measured, ignoring the ( _frankly misogynist_ ) girlfriend jab. “Mind telling me who you are, _Fischer?_ Since you know all about me already. You’re not Resistance, and with this shit perimeter you've got goin’ on you’re definitely not one of mine.”

Fischer’s leans back, not taking the bait, his whole posture tilting into this feigned ease. “My men and I aren't in on this bumfuck county’s game of war, I can assure you. We’re here on business.”

 _And business is Bliss_.

Rook takes in her surroundings, properly this time. With the same quiet, surgical eye she’s seen Jacob pick the area apart with the moment the zip-ties were on.

Bliss. A shit ton of it as cargo, stacked up and ready for whatever the fuck these mercs plan to do with it. About a dozen mercenaries in the encampment, and who knows how many more are lurking in the outskirts of the area. Guns, lots of them—the standard shit Rook finds in all of Hope County. Some food rations lying around, god, she’s hungry.

Two helicopters, just two, so maybe they really do have small numbers—for both discretion and efficiency.

Rook’s head is reeling. With the sudden spike in hunger and the million questions running around in her head, she misses what Fischer says and suddenly a merc is cutting off Jacob’s zip-ties.

“Glad we can help each other out.” Jacob says, massaging his wrists. He jerks his head over at Rook, not directly looking at her. “Whatcha gonna do with her?”

Fischer sizes up Jacob—who’s now standing at full height—and straightens up, squares his shoulder back. He nods at the merc at Rook’s flank. “Kill her—can’t leave any witnesses now, can we? No—no—not in the camp, Bennet. I don’t shit where I eat. Drag her out into the woods and put a bullet in her there.”

The merc—Bennet—starts to haul her away. Jacob rounds on Fischer, a collective twitch of gloved fingers on triggers occur at the sudden movement from him.

“You don’t know who she is, do you? Your intel not up-to-date?” Jacob says, talking fast. “That’s the Junior Deputy the Resistance fucking hero worship. You kill her, you lose your chance on a fat ransom.”

“Fucking asshole!” Rook exclaims, trying to lunge out of the merc’s grasp, plastic biting into her wrists. She’s not worth bleeding the Resistance dry—she’d rather die than be their weakness.

Jacob’s eyes flash at her, expression unreadable to Rook, then turns back to Fischer.

“Shut up!” Bennet repeats at her but stops dragging Rook at the sound of _ransom_. The camp is quiet as everyone watches the gears turn in Fischer’s head.

Rook watches the back of Jacob’s head, tries to pry into his skull with her gaze and figure out where the fuck he’s going with this. The Resistance has nothing to serve as a reward compared to John Seed’s money and the Bliss. What the fuck can the Resistance give these mercs? All they have to give is maybe some ammo and all the _oregano_ Tweak hides somewhere in Aubrey’s Diner.

“And what’s the soldier Seed doing cave touring with this so-called ‘ _Hero of the Resistance_ ’?” Fischer taps an index finger to his jaw, pondering and mocking.

“We’re the only survivors of the explosion the Whitetails and—mother _fucker_ if you tell me to shut up _one more time_ —!” Rook explains, venom biting into her words when she sees _Bennet_ raise his hand again.

Fischer waves dismissively. “Stand down, Bennet.”

Bennet lets his hand fall, scowling brown eyes holding Rook’s warning glare. The ballistic half-mask hides his lower face but she can tell he’s most likely sneering at her. She spits at his feet and thinks _if she wasn’t fucking zip-tied right now_. Bennet’s shoulders rise at the offending saliva, fist clenching, Fischer’s _stand down_ probably a mantra in his head.

Jacob sighs.

Fischer purses his lips. “Keep talking, _Junior Deputy_.”

Rook does her best not to squirm under the scrutinizing. “Like I said—we survived the explosion, got stuck in the mine, then some caves, this is the first time I’ve seen the sky in almost a week. And now we’ve run into you assholes.”

She doesn’t mention the bunker. Talking about the bunker feels like spilling a secret. She glances at Jacob, he’s already looking at her. Not that it matters. She looks away.

Fischer smiles like this is all testing his patience. “Nice story. Sadly, there’s nothing my employer wants or needs from the Resistance.”

 _No shit._ Rook’s shoulders fall, relieved for the Resistance and resigned to her fate.

“But a ransom!” Fischer continues, turning to Jacob and tilting his head slightly. “Now you’ve given me a million dollar idea. Tell me, does your family _love you_ , Seed? They must, after all, a face like that is only loved by family.”

Jacob squints, feathers ruffled. He steps back from Fischer’s leering smile, eyes darting around momentarily, taking in the number of threats around him. “You let me walk for more Bliss. We had a deal. You slimy enough to be goin’ back on your word already? Hasn’t even been five fuckin’ minutes.”

Fischer doesn’t take his eyes off Jacob, the two of their cold, dead eyes clashing in an icy stalemate, waiting to see who cracks first. Fischer—with his mercenaries flanking him and gun resting at his side? Or Jacob—outnumbered, unarmed, full of malicious intent and the knowledge that the mercs want him alive?

Hope County thinks Jacob and Rook are dead. Sure, Jacob’s a valuable asset to Fischer and his men—ransom him _alive_ to his mourning family in exchange for barrels and barrels of Bliss. But the mercs already have _a lot_ of Bliss, possibly enough that they’re content with. Jacob alive is just a bonus prize—something they can live without. One wrong move from him, one miscalculation, and they can kill him, then kill Rook afterwards. No one in the county would be the wiser. Drag both of them out into the woods to dig their own shallow graves before they die, far far away from the encampment because Fischer doesn’t _shit where he eats_.

There is nothing Jacob can do but stand down and quietly seethe. A wolf without his pack, cornered and outnumbered by man with torches.

“No hard feelings, Seed. It’s just business. The payday we get when we come back with even _more_ Bliss than we were sent for…” Fischer trails off with a low, appreciative whistle. “Too good to pass up. Your deal was cute, but I’m sure we’ll squeeze out _a lot_ more from a very appreciative family for bringing their precious big brother back alive.”

“How do you expect the cultists to deal with you and not shoot first?” Rook scowls. “How do you even expect to leave the county when Peggies are blocking off every exit and patrolling the skies?”

Fischer doesn’t answer her, just smiles tightly.

Jacob shakes his head, anger radiating off his cool composure in waves. “You’ve got someone on the inside. In the fuckin’ Gate.”

“Clever,” Fischer snorts derisively, wagging a finger at Jacob. He takes Jacob’s red sniper rifle from the merc holding their weapons, eyes it appreciatively and looks back at Jacob. “This is a beauty. I think I’ll keep it. Restrain him.”

Jacob lets a merc pull his arms back and lock his wrists together with zip-tie again. When the merc tries to pull him away, get him to move, Jacob doesn’t follow. He just locks his glare on Fischer as the merc tugs uselessly.

“For fuck’s sake.” Fischer grits out, calm demeanor crumbling under Jacob’s unsettling glare. He bodily shoves Jacob back and starts to walk away. “Tie him up somewhere.”

Two more mercs have joined the one restraining Jacob, steering his huge body away from their leader, shoving him roughly and grunting useless shit like _move or i’ll fuckin’ shoot you._ Fischer turns to Bennet, his gloved hand still like a vice on Rook’s upper arm. He waves his hands in a shooing motion and barks at Bennet. “The fuck are you still standing there for? Go on! And make sure no one can identify the body. Don’t want Hope County crawling up my ass.”

“Yes sir,” Bennet nods, sounding awfully pleased with his orders. Another mercenary starts accompanying him as he hauls Rook away from the camp.

She spares one last glance at Jacob’s retreating form being shoved in the opposite direction of her. With the black eye marring his features and the growing distance between them it’s too hard to discern the expression on his face, but she knows he’s looking at her too.

 

-

 

Bennet throws her to the dirt somewhere about two hundred paces away from the mercenary encampment. Unable to break her fall with her hands bound behind her back, her shoulder takes the brunt of the fall, her chin scraping painfully into the dirt.

The other merc—Carter, she had heard from Bennet—unholsters his handgun and points it right at her face. He pulls down his ballistic mask, exposing his face. Decent enough to let Rook know who her killer is.

“Sorry,” Carter shrugs down at Rook.

She braces herself. _I can’t believe I went through all this shit the last few days just to die out here._

Then Bennet is pushing Carter’s gun away. “Hold up. Fischer said she can’t be identifiable.”

Carter’s face twists in confusion. “Yeah, we can handle that after she’s dead.”

Bennet clocks his fists together, looking much more relaxed than he did around Fischer. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“Come on, that’s—that’s more trouble than it’s worth.”

Bennet bunches Rook’s jacket in his fist and yanks her up to sit in the dirt. He glances down, her tattoo from John must be peeking out with her shirt and jacket being pulled.

“ _Wrath?_ ” he scoffs. “That’s fucked up.”

“Says the guy who enjoys beating people to death,” Carter mutters.

“What was that?” Bennet near snarls, head turning sharply towards his companion.

“Nothing,” Carter shrugs.

“That’s what I thought.” Bennet turns back to Rook slowly, eyes narrowed.

He balls up his free hand and slams his fist into the side of Rook’s face. The world spins for a second when the force of it snaps her head to one side, pain blossoming on her skull.

She blinks away stars. Over Bennet’s hunched shoulder she sees Carter sigh and re-holster his gun. Bennet means to beat her bloody—wreck her face so if she’s ever found, nobody will know who she is.

She should have just drowned in the river. Should’ve just let Jacob kill her.

She spits blood into Bennet’s face. “You hit like a fucking toddler.”

Bennet punches her again, knuckles colliding with the same place on her cheekbone. The pain doubles, hurting even when she winces after the punch.

“Shut up,” he says.

“That the only two words you know?”

Bennet’s eyes twitch. He yanks her closer, pulling back for another punch.

The setting sun dips behind the treeline, blanketing them all in grey-blue, some orange fragments of sunlight slipping through foliage. There’s a low _growl_. It’s not from Bennet, who suddenly drops her as something _huge_ tackles him to the ground. She drops to the ground again, hearing Bennet’s stifled scream.

“Oh shit!” Carter shouts. Rook struggles in her bound hands and dizziness to stand up just in time to see Carter pull out his gun a second too late as the big brown blur mauls him down with a low roar before he can even aim.

It’s a fucking grizzly, just her luck.

Bennet’s still twitching and gurgling on the ground, trying to form words but failing. Rook lowers down and twists her arms around so she can paw for the knife holstered on his leg while the bear is still gnawing down on Carter. The scent of blood is strong in the air.

She starts working the knife on the zip-ties, trying to keep her breathing even and steady her shaking hands. She hopes the grizzly stays focused on chewing up Carter’s fresh corpse. She hopes Bennet stops making so much noise.

A few tense moments later, her heart hammering in her ears, the hard plastic around her sore wrists finally snap. _Fucking finally_. She whirls her liberated arms around, knife clutched tightly in one hand.

Bennet, despite how torn up he is, still clings to life. Claw marks have shredded his torso and a part of his neck, he continues choking on his own blood rising in his throat, eyes wide at Rook.

“ _Shut up_ ,” she hisses and sinks the knife into him. He stops twitching.

She scrambles for his fallen rifle, backs up away from the bodies and the bear, and aims down the sights. Hopefully she doesn’t have to fight it, but she’s not going to turn her back to it as she leaves so it can charge at her when she’s not looking.

Seven steps back her boot snaps down on a twig. In that moment it’s the loudest thing she’s ever heard.

The grizzly huffs a breath, lifts its huge head from Carter’s mutilated corpse. _Don’t turn around don’t turn around don’t turn around_.

The grizzly turns, looks for the source of the sound. When its head appears from behind the moving mound of its body, she lines it up in her sights and—freezes. It’s got a collar on. She _knows_ that collar.

A manic sound tumbles out of her lips—something between a laugh and a cry. Just her goddamn luck. She lowers the gun and runs straight at Cheeseburger’s bloody snout.

“Cheese—my fucking hero,” she coos, scratching behind his fluffy ears. Cheeseburger huffs, pleased by the cuddles. Has he been wandering around alone the last week? She’s absolutely going to spoil this big furry baby with salmon after she deals with this shit.

Rook pulls away from Cheeseburger, who licks her arm once more and goes back to chewing up Carter. She pats down both dead mercenaries and lines them up on the ground in front of her, sitting in the dirt ( _a lot more comfortably than before_ ) and taking stock of what she has to work with.

It’s not a lot, the most useful things being the rifle and the handgun. There were a few granola bars in Bennet’s pockets, but with how hungry she was they were gone in a minute. She wishes she had her throwing knives, or something else that’s quiet. Hopefully, she can find what’s left of her gear first thing when she reaches the mercenary encampment again.

She’d have to sneak in when it’s dark, it’d be harder for them to spot her. It would be easier if she could just take Bennet’s and Carter’s clothes, with the masks she might be able to pass as another mercenary just long enough for her to retrieve her things, but Cheeseburger made sure their clothes were shredded and bloody.

Sneak in. Gear up. Kill mercenaries. Destroy the Bliss—there is no way she’s letting that shit leave the county. Kill Fischer. And Jacob?

Rook sighs and drops her head into her hands. Cheeseburger lays down by the bodies and watches her curiously. Why does she continue this conflict about Jacob’s fate? She was stuck with him for barely a week, not a fucking month or a year. Her opinion of him should _not_ have changed.

Yet here she is, suffering through this dilemma like a child pulling the petals off flowers. _Kill Jacob, don’t kill Jacob, kill Jacob, don’t kill Jacob, kill Jacob_ —

“Shit,” she groans, the swear muffled into her grimy palms. If she doesn’t kill him—what the fuck is her plan, anyway? Cart him off to his family with a cheery _hey here’s your brother who I didn’t kill! I'll be back tomorrow morning to kill you all!_ Or drag him to the Resistance and politely request that they don’t ask her why she didn’t put him in the ground?

Literally a fourth of Hope County’s problems would be solved if he ceased to breathe.

Rook sighs one more time, ejects all the stress from her body with one heavy exhale ( _if only things worked that way_ ), and stands.

“Well, Cheeseburger,” she mutters and cards her fingers through the bear’s fur. “I can’t take you along with me for this fight, buddy. Unless you’re suddenly a master of stealth?”

Cheeseburger yawns. The sky grows darker.

“Yeah,” Rook says softly. “That’s what I thought.”

 

-

 

It’s dark out when Rook’s left Cheeseburger and reaches the outskirts of the encampment. From her spot in the bushes, she can hear the crackle of a campfire and soft murmurs of conversation. A savory scent wafts through the air, it’s stew cooking over the fire, she realizes.

Her breath hitches when she spots a familiar shock of red hair, arms bound behind his back and slumped against a tree. He looks like shit. Worse off than the massive bruise that throbs dully on Rook’s face. Jacob’s black eye looks properly swollen now and from this distance she can see something glistening on his face—blood. There’s blood splattered on him like someone threw buckets of it at his front, soaking his shirt, his jacket askew on his shoulders revealing more blood on his shoulder, his stitches most likely popped open. At first, she thinks he’s unconscious, but his head moves minutely, sluggish.

 _What the fuck did they do to him?_ Rook frowns and inches closer, pushing away some flora. _They were just going to ransom him, weren’t they? Why beat him to a pulp?_ She briefly thinks of how much anger has built up inside Jacob from this, his injuries and exhaustion probably the only thing keeping him from trembling with it.

There she goes, _caring_ again. God.

She circles around the perimeter and heads towards the two mercenaries cleaning their guns. They’re at the edge of the encampment, no one’s really looking this way. It would be easier for her to take them out first.

“... crazy. Can’t wait for us to get rid of this ginger asshole. Did you see what he did to Arthur?”

They’re quietly chatting, Rook is grateful and perturbed at the same time—with them distracted by each other it’s easier for her to get closer, but how does she take them both out quietly when they have their attention on each other? She wishes she had found Peaches, or Jess.

“Fischer said we’re heading to a meeting place at first light. We bring along Seed after—”

“But did you _see_ what he did to Arthur? Shit, man, I got no appetite for dinner after that.”

“I saw the blood. I—no, I didn’t wanna fucking look. I’ve met Arthur’s family, I probably gotta be the one to tell his kids after this, so fuck no, I don’t want the details.”

“Seed tore his throat out. _With his teeth_.” The merc shakes his head, Rook flinching back behind the Bliss container when she thinks he’s turning around. He doesn’t. He goes back to the guns. “Gotta hand it to him, he almost slipped away from us after. Arthur—”

“Yeah, yeah, he got Arthur all alone when Fischer sent him to check in on the guy. Took Arthur’s knife and cut himself out of the zip-ties. _I know_. But I didn’t want to know _everything_. Jesus, that’s disgusting. At least Fischer and the guys kicked the shit outta him afterwards. Too bad we can’t kill him.”

“Yeah, least there’s that. God, who fucking does that? Bites someone’s throat out?”

A shudder. “I don’t know—Christ it’s like he’s feral or somethin’. Don’t wanna think about it.”

“Heard he lives with wolves up in the mountains or something. Think he fucks his wolves?”

Hidden behind the Bliss barrels, Rook fights a smirk. _Sounds like dumb shit Sharky would say._

The other merc drops the gun and rag onto the table and throws up his hands. “You’re fucking disgusting. I can’t listen to this—gonna go piss.”

Rook ducks away as the other merc unknowingly passes her to retreat into the bushes. She creeps after him. He stops by a tree close to camp, and before he can even get his fly down Rook is darting up. _Snap_ goes his neck, and into the bushes his body goes.

She’s glad the two mercenaries didn’t chat long enough for her to catch their names. This makes it a little easier.

She drops the mercenary by the guns quickly, body hitting the ground with a dull thump. Rook’s eyes glaze over the table. Her throwing knives sit neatly lined up near the farther edge of the table, she takes those back. Jacob’s knife is also resting on the table, she takes that as well. The rest is just guns, guns, guns. She’s fine with what she has—she’s looking for something quiet.

Then Rook’s eyes land on a familiar rectangular shape.

Or maybe she something _very loud_.

She swipes the remote explosives off the table and moves on.

Rook quickly disposes of the rest of the mercenaries scattered around camp, getting to her next target faster and faster now that she’s ensured there are less watchful eyes around with every fallen mercenary. Over the warm crackle of the fire, she sees two mercs left. They’re right by Jacob, talking to him. Fischer is most likely in one of the tents—one of the larger ones she bets. Checking each tent would be risky, could alert whoever’s left alive in the camp. She’ll look for Fischer last, then.

Quietly backtracking some steps, she places a remote explosive by the stacks of Bliss barrels. One explosive should do it, the proximity of the barrels would chain explosions. Just to be sure, she finds a small gas tank and drizzles it around the Bliss.

_Okay, now time for the mercs._

The two mercs by Jacob are taunting him. They block him from her line of sight, all she can see are his outstretched legs. His jeans are scrapped at the knees, splatters of blood here and there stain the dark wash denim. Blood dotting his boots.

Rook slips past a tent, stalking closer and closer. The remote detonator for the explosives a weight in her pocket she’s keenly aware of.

“You’re fucking lucky you’re worth keeping alive,” one of the mercs spit down. “Maybe now that you’re even more fucked up than normal your little family will be _desperate_ to have you back.”

“That means more Bliss.” The other one grunts, leaning back with his hands shoved into his pockets. Rook’s going for that one first.

“More Bliss means more money.”

“So much fucking money. But _fuck_ , I wish Fischer’d just let us kill you. Fucking animal.”

“What’s that?” She hears Jacob croak, the goading tone to his voice coming out as a wheeze. “Come closer, promise I don’t bite.”

The merc with the gruff voice doesn’t get to respond. Rook leaps at him from behind, thinking _this is gonna be loud_ , and stabs at his neck with Jacob’s knife. He howls before the sound is cut off by his own convulsing. She can tell she hit home when blood spurts violently from the man’s neck, spraying onto the shoulder of the other merc who’s startling away from Jacob.

He draws his handgun and starts shooting at Rook in a panic, Rook pushes forward using the draining body in front of her as a meatshield. The body shakes as bullets puncture it, some bullets exiting the body whizzing past dreadfully close to Rook.

She briefly hears Jacob’s astounded breath of _shit, Deputy_ before she pushes the body at the merc. The fresh corpse falls forward like a tree. The merc tries to sidestep it but Jacob, still bound by to the tree, kicks out his long legs. The merc stumbles on them and doesn’t fall, but it gives Rook enough of a window to toss a throwing knife at him and tackle him to the ground to finish him off.

Jacob says nothing when she and merc tumble onto the dirt by his legs, just breathes, watches. Rook is so close now she can smell the fresh blood mingling with the faint scent old blood and sweat clinging to Jacob. It smells like a coin after it’s been clasped tightly in a sweaty hand, suffocating, but Rook takes a deep breathe anyway and drives Jacob’s knife into the merc’s chest. Drives it all the way down and twists, then when the merc’s persisting hands grow weaker, too weak to keep pushing her away, she pulls the knife out and stabs one more time just to be safe.

The merc wheezes, gasps, and whines, blood gathering in his mouth. His eyes go wide and then he finally stills.

Rook sits up from the dead body, her elbow bumping into Jacob’s knee. Adrenaline thuds in her ears, thumping at a rabbit’s pace. She pulls out the knife.

“Shoulda known they wouldn’t have killed you so easily,” is all Jacob says, quiet and breathy. His mustache and beard is darker, a deeper red than his hair. Bloodstained. The dead merc’s words echo in her head. _Seed tore his throat out. With his teeth._ Blood and grime are smeared around his face, caking into the topography of his scars. There’s a rich saturation of red painted down his neck, dried in untouched drips, the only blood on him he hadn’t been able to wipe off with his hands zip-tied behind him. His eyes drop down to the knife clutched in her hands. “S’my knife.”

_Kill him now. You’re not trapped in the cave. You’re not trapped in the bunker. You don’t need him anymore. Kill him._

The knife feels heavier in her hands when she meets his eyes. She can see the reflection of the campfire far behind her in those blues, ablaze. She can hardly see his left eye from the swelling, but the right eye searches her face the same way she’s searching his—taking in all the new features. The cut on his temple. The angry bruise swelling under her eye, resting on her cheekbone. The faint smears of dried blood around his mouth, in his beard, millimeters away from wet pink lips. She forces herself to look away, looks around the encampment, hopes the grime on her face hides the rising flush. _Focus, god, he’s distracting._

_Fischer. Where is he?_

As if on cue, Fischer flies out of one of the tents, Jacob’s red rifle slung around his shoulder. There’s a furious expression on his face, grey eyes wide, forehead creasing, jaw set and teeth grinding. “Who the fuck is shooting—”

He freezes when he takes in the scene before him. Camp empty, fire crackling with a pot of stew hanging over it. Blood soaking into the dirt. Bodies of his men littered around.

Rook is already on her feet, she’s stalked up behind him while he stands staring at his dead men. She levels Jacob’s knife at his jugular, still slick and red with blood, and pivots till she’s standing next to him.

Fischer stiffens at her presence. Turns his head just the slightest way toward her, stops when his eyes catch the knife. His hands, dangling uselessly at his sides, are balled into trembling fists. “You killed all my men. Why—why haven’t you killed me yet?”

The adrenaline rush is a high pumping in her veins. Maddeningly, Rook slips her free hand into her pocket. She eyes the Bliss pointedly. “Guess.”

Fischer frowns, eyes darting around desperately as he thinks his next move. “You—you want to make a deal? Kept me alive, kept the Bliss in-tact. We’ll split the prize 50/50. My employer will still—”

“Nah, I think all this cult shit’s just given me a flair for the dramatic.” Rook shrugs, and detonates the explosives.

Light tremors wreak the ground as the Bliss barrels light up in a roar of flames, shrapnel, and puffs of mint green smoke. The explosions trail audibly in a line through each barrel in the stacks, it reminds Rook of fireworks. Deafening and beautiful.

Bliss and smoke mix in the air as the growing fire from the explosion slowly spreads to the rest of the encampment, starting to singe at tables and tents.

Fischer is caught between a roar and a snarl, turning to shout at her, throttle her for destroying everything. Rook slashes his throat before his frustrated shouts can even form into coherent words.

It’s anticlimactic. The _swish_ of a knife moving through the air. A weak, strangled cry. A spray of blood warm on her face. The inelegant crumple of Fischer’s lean body falling to the ground, blood ribboning out of the line she’s drawn in his neck. It feels like victory.

It’s a small victory, nothing that changes the fate of Hope County, nothing that actually helps her friends, but it feels good. Maybe it’s just the blood on her face talking.

_Now to deal with Jacob._

Rook turns on her heels and walks towards Jacob at a sedate pace. He’s still tied to the tree, but he’s sitting up straighter instead of his previous slumped posture. His head is tilted up, leaning against the trunk of the tree, his once outstretched legs drawn back to cross together.

The closer she gets, the more the small victory tastes bitter in her mouth, uncertainty washing it down.

She can see faint traces of Bliss floating in the air. She feels the heat of the burning camp behind her warm up her back, seeping into her bones.

Then Rook’s standing before Jacob, his knife clutched in her hands. Ready— _for what?_

Jacob’s stare burns into her, pupils dilated, eyes wide enough that she can even see his swelling black eye clearly. The light from the fire casts a warm glow on him, lighting up his face, his beard, his hair. Jacob alight with his hands bound behind his back, staring up at her with something like reverence flecked in the blue of his eyes.

Rook lowers herself down, rests her knees on the bloodstained dirt so she’s eye-level with him. The knife is still pointed at him, but her grip is loose with hesitance.

If there’s a right time to kill Jacob Seed, it’s now. Everyone thinks he’s dead, and she can make sure of that. Cure Hope County of one its parasites. With his own knife no less. Rook looks at the blade in her hands once again, the weight of it so much heavier this time. It wouldn’t look any different from how it does now, covered in blood. It would be Jacob’s blood. It would be a good thing.

_He plans to die anyway. Just not trapped in that cave, in that bunker, he said. Well, here he fucking is._

Jacob says her name, soft and encouraging. His breath has a wheeze to it that makes Rook think he might have bruised a rib. Her eyes snap back to him at the mention of her name, rolling off his tongue like a shiver down her spine.

“Jacob,” she says back. It sounds almost like a question.

“Have the grace to at least untie me before you finish the job?” The corner of his mouth quirks up in a small smirk. She makes a face and leans over to cut the ropes around the tree, the zip-tie around his wrists. He leans in while she does this, his lips deathly close to her face. “Knew you would.”

“Don’t try any shit,” she says halfheartedly once he’s free, leveling the knifepoint back at him. He rubs his wrists, red lines where the zip-ties bit into skin. He shuffles, slumping back against the tree, his hands falling onto his lap, fatigue settling in. Exhausted. Defeated.

“C’mon, do it.” His voice is almost a whisper, gravelly and tired. “Know you’re strong, shit, look at the mess you’ve made of this place. If anyone’s strong enough to do it, it’s you. Take the kill.”

She can’t tear her eyes away from his. The burning pale blues regard her with the same overwhelming fervor from after the river. This time she does not look away. She will not look away.

_Do it. Come on. Do it._

Rook breathes in deep, face contorted in concentration and uncertainty, tightens her grip on the knife. But a few heartbeats later, she still hasn’t moved and a rough hand wraps around her wrist. Jacob drags her hand down, guiding the knife away from his face and stopping to rest at his chest, next to the chain of his dog tags, right where his heart is.

The knifepoint presses into him, distressing the darkly stained fabric of his shirt.

“Take it. It’s yours. Only yours.”

Rook feels like she’s been hit by a car. _It’s yours_. He means to bleed for her, give her his heart—this kill—like it’s a gift, a reward.

“Jacob—” She falters. Weak, _weak_ , she sounds weak. Far behind her, something crashes in the fire, a structure falling apart.

“It belongs to you. You earned it. Now take it.” The hand slips away from her wrist, and Rook desperately wants it back there. The warm scrape of his skin on hers. A hand around her wrist.

A thumb dragging over her lips.

“ _Shit_ ,” Rook snarls out in frustration and stabs the knife into the tree bark next to Jacob’s head, who seems unfazed by the outburst. He just keeps fucking _staring_ at her with some fucking awed look in his eyes. “This is such a bad idea.”

God, she’s making a fucking mistake. But she has no time to properly weigh the pros and cons because she’s grabbing Jacob’s shirt and smashing her lips onto his.

Jacob makes a raw, wounded sound against her and for a moment she thinks it’s because she hurt him, she’s knocked against an injured rib or pushed into his torn stitches but Jacob locks an arm around her waist and warm hand at her nape and _pulls_ her closer, into his lap.

There is nothing graceful about the kiss. It’s vicious and messy, has her lips bruising against his, his stained beard scratching drying blood onto her face like a fraying paint brush, their teeth clicking and clashing against each other. They sit against the tree, bruised and bloody while a camp goes up in flames behind them, trying to get their faces as close as they can to each other despite the bruises that mar both their faces.

Rook can taste blood in her mouth—in his mouth. It doesn’t matter to her, she just wants to get closer, all caution and conflict flying out the window.

She doesn’t care about any of that. The Resistance and Eden’s Gate feel far away. This burning place of blood, Bliss, and destruction is here and now. She’ll figure out all the fucked up stuff later.

Jacob bites down on her lower lip, pressing her closer to him, and she doesn’t care about a damn thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey here are my mercenary ocs! i hate them and killed them in the same chapter! yay!
> 
> sorry for the wait, this chapter was uhhh something i struggled with for a bit but hey they FINALLY did the thing


	7. Chapter 7

The fire from the explosion has swallowed up the mercenary camp. It’s dying now, Rook can tell from the fading sound of crackling embers and waning heat against her back, different from the heat searing into her waist, the back of her neck, the places Jacob’s roaming hands press into her.

Rook doesn’t know how long they’ve been sitting here, just kissing each other. It could have been seconds, minutes, a whole goddamn hour. The light from the fire is dying, blanketing them in the dark as slivers of moonlight trickle in through the cover the leaves of the tree provide.

Jacob kisses like he means to devour her, like he can’t get enough, like he’s going to get as much as he can with the possibility of this never happening again hanging over their heads. Rook’s hands fly up to his neck, thumbs and index fingers tangling in the scraggly hair of his beard as she sinks her teeth into his bottom lip and sucks gently.

The hand on the back of her neck flies up in turn, he buries his fingers in her hair and pulls lightly. Both of them groaning in needy, embarrassing sounds. Rook’s hands flutter around him, from his neck, to the base of his skull, to his shoulders—

Jacob hisses in pain and Rook immediately draws back, lightly pushing Jacob back when his mouth just follows after her for more.

“Jacob—wait. Your stitches—”

“Don’t care.” He licks his lips, blinks at her, swollen eye twitching as he does so. _God, he’s a fucking mess._ He leans in again.

“You’re—you’re hurt—” she mumbles against his lips. He cradles her face—the bruised side—with one hand, she can feel little specks of grime sliding on her cheek at every minute movement.

Her face fucking hurts, the dull throb of the bruise from Bennet’s punches is brought into the foreground at this contact from Jacob’s hand. She winces, almost biting the tongue that’s slid into her mouth, but still leans into the touch. It hurts, pressure on the bruise bursting hot and cold under her skin, but she just covers the back of Jacob’s hand with hers and just keeps it there when he tries to move his hand away after her wince.

“So are you,” he says plainly, trailing kisses along her jaw and down to her neck. His hand falls away from her face to trace along her jawline, carefully avoiding the scrape on her chin as he nudges her head up up up. His mustache tickles her skin as he kisses each of the fading imprints of his fingers bruised around her neck. Each kiss packs an extra bite due to the old contusions, but she welcomes this pain with a shaky inhale as he continues his ministrations.

Something warm rolls down her arm, into her jacket sleeve. Rook's eyes dart down to her hand on Jacob's clavicle, just under the stab wound on his shoulder. Fresh blood leaks out of it, dripping down the small space of exposed skin through the slice in his shirt and onto Rook's hand. Lines of blood trail down the webs between her fingers and twist around her palm, dripping down her arm and off onto Jacob's jeans.

“Jacob,” she tries again, capturing his lips once more before she really pulls away this time. She holds her bloody hand up to him. “Your stitches.”

He sighs heavily and leans back against the tree with a grimace. “S'not just the stitches.”

With an incredulous sound escaping her she zones in on his midsection, yanking up his shirt by the hem. Jacob's hand catches her wrist to stop her, a desperate look flashes across his face.

“Deputy—” he warns, his voice pained.

She's lifted the shirt right above his pecs, Jacob's hand squeezes and loosens around her wrist in a rhythm of wariness. _Maybe it's his scars he's worried about me seeing?_ Pale skin mottled with scars akin to the ones on his face. A few splotches similar to the ones on his forearms litter the top of his pecs. Red hair scarce on his chest, sprouting in thick patches where the follicles haven't been totally destroyed, it grows thinner but more in-tact trailing down as a line along his abdomen and disappearing under his belt. Light, plasticy scars mingle with all of them in slashes of varying sizes, some thin and small, some big and wide. Some old and faded, the ones that look _really_ old briefly tug at her chest.

She can feel Jacob's eyes on her, waiting for something, a reaction. Horror—disgust—pity?

But the scars aren't what she's reacting to. It's background noise, an afterthought to a more pressing concern.

His ribs are marbled with bruises. Blues and purples mix with sickening, murky yellows here and there. A few cuts in some areas where the skin has split from blows. How Jacob isn't spitting out blood yet, she doesn't know. Maybe when he starts to move, really _move_ instead of just sitting here, the interior damage will sync to the exterior.

“Shit,” she mutters, sliding off his lap. “How much does this hurt? And you've just been sitting here _kissing me?_ ”

Jacob relaxes a little, his scars not addressed but the discomfort still on his face. “You started it.”

“How—have I been hurting you this whole time? Christ, Jacob this looks _bad._ Why didn't you say anything?”

A wheeze. “To be fair, I told ya to kill me.”

“Shit, shit, we gotta get you help. I—can you walk? We’re not gonna find anyone out here, we have to move. Maybe I can find something—”

Jacob looks over her shoulder, deadpan and his good eyebrow raised. “Doesn’t look like there’s much left.”

“We need to at least fix up your wound again, you’re losing blood. I’ll find something.” Rook starts to get up, and Jacob’s hand locks around her arm.

“There’s nothing there that’ll help me, Dep.” He tries to pull her back down. “Just—”

“Just what?” She scowls. “Kiss it better for you?”

Jacob regards her with another deadpan expression. Then his face twists into a wince followed by wet, heaving coughs.

“I’ll find something,” Rook says softly. She tugs her arm away, and he lets her go.

Tables and chairs are still ablaze, some tents have been eaten up into ash. The merc’s helicopters are still intact, but they’ve been blackened by the fire, probably too unstable to use without combusting the second the engine starts. There were several ATVs, but they were by the Bliss barrels so Rook doesn’t even check to see if they’re still in one piece. Rook crinkles her nose at the scent of burning flesh, eyes glazing over the burnt corpses of mercenaries, the plasticy yellow decals on their jackets thickly melting in the heat.

It’s darker now—with the fire dwindling on just leftover structures of the camp Rook, thankful for Hope County’s open skies, relies mostly on the moonlight to light the way. It’s a morbidly beautiful sight, the silvery blues cast down from the night sky clashing against the orange hues of dancing flames. The fading traces of Bliss in the air. It’s a full moon, and the clearing the by the cave mercs had settled in would be breathtaking if it weren’t for the blood in the soil and the smell of burnt bodies wafting in the breeze.

Two tents remain, browning and burnt but no longer on fire. Rook ducks into them, the smell of burnt plastic stale in the air inside. There’s a canteen, still pretty full when Rook picks it up and feels liquid sloshing around inside. She takes a small sip of the lukewarm water and saves the rest for Jacob. There isn’t anything else useful—a lived in, half burnt sleeping bag with a family photo tucked away inside. With a shaky exhale Rook leaves it be, numbed by her ever-growing body count.

The next tent doesn’t have much either, but thankfully she finds a medkit. She opens it up and rifles around its contents. Barely any alcohol left, no bandages, but there’s a suturing kit at least.

“This’ll have to do,” she mumbles and exits the tent. “Not even a damn radio.”

She waves the medkit in the air, triumphant, its contents clunking around inside as she does so. She gives Jacob a little smile as she approaches, she doesn’t know if the smile’s more for him or to just reassure herself. “Told you I’d find something.”

Jacob blinks blearily at her, his pale skin even paler from the blood loss and exhaustion. It freaks Rook out a little, this slumped and silent Jacob so different from the Jacob who towers over everyone and loves to hear himself talk.

“There weren’t any bandages…” she says as she settles down next to him, filling the uneasy silence. “But we’ll make do. This is only temporary, before we get moving and actually find civilization again. Here, drink.”

She hands the canteen over to him, watches as he tips his head back and takes greedy gulps. Her eyes following the water spilling out of the corners of his mouth, rolling into his beard, rolling down down down his throat that moves with each chug, washing away a little of the dried blood of the man whose throat he tore out.

He hands the near-empty canteen back to Rook with a quiet, refreshed _ahhh_. Rook tugs the shoulder of his jacket down and opens up the medkit.

Jacob hisses quietly as she extracts the torn stitches carefully, hisses louder when she pours alcohol over his shoulder. She begins with the new stitches, working a little slower than before due to the lack of light.

The silence as she works lets her thoughts wander, Jacob’s uneven breathing fading into background noise as she worries over what comes next. What do they tell people? Would they find Resistance first, or Peggies? How would anyone even react?

Thankfully, she still gets the stitches done fairly fast, so she doesn’t have to think any longer. She pours more alcohol over the fresh stitches, warm air whistling out of Jacob’s clenched teeth at the sting.

“Well,” Rook murmurs, quietly lamenting the lack of bandages. “It’s better than nothing.”

Jacob shuts his eyes tight for a moment and clenches his jaw, as if he’s swallowing up the sting of his wound, tuning out the ache of his ribs. He lets out a shaky breath and opens his eyes again, hands going up from his lap to pull Rook closer. “‘Kay, let’s—”

“I still have to fix up this cut,” she says firmly, pulling away from him and swipes the blood drizzling down from the cut on his temple, showing him the red on her fingertips.

“Fucking killin’ me,” Jacob wheezes out, leaning his head back against the tree’s trunk again and scowls at her. “Just get it over with, _doctor_.”

Rook’s no doctor, but she picks up the needle again and gets it over with.

The second she’s done pouring the last of the alcohol Jacob knocks the empty plastic bottle out of her hand and tugs her down by the collar of her jacket. Rook’s surprised sound is muffled by his lips on hers, his tongue already in her mouth, swiping at the roof. Rook settles for one hand on his uninjured shoulder and the other lightly on his neck, fingers gliding along old scar tissue.

This time Jacob is the one to end the kiss, pulling back ever so slightly to just rest his sweaty, grimy forehead against hers, noses bumping, labored breaths hot on her face.

Crackling blue eyes stare down at her lips when he speaks. “Gonna do that every time I feel like I’m fuckin’ dying.”

 

-

 

When Rook returns to the small clearing she was meant to die in, Cheeseburger is no longer there. Bennet and Carter’s mutilated bodies lay exactly where she left them, the smell of death cold in the air.

It’s much better than the smell of burning bodies. Objectively, no, Bennet and Carter definitely smell _worse_ , but it’s a stench everyone in Hope County is painfully familiar with now. Burning bodies are odd, they don’t quite smell as bad as one would think— _like pork_ , she remembers Jess telling her the first time they worked together.

It’s weird to be around that smell for too long, weird to think that perhaps the smell is a little pleasant by association. It’s fucked up, and Rook’s glad Jacob insisted on leaving the encampment to settle somewhere else for the night.

It was difficult for Jacob to get here, hunched over and wincing with every step. _He shouldn’t be moving so much_ , Rook kept thinking, _but what choice do we have?_

It’s even worse that they intend to wait for daylight. Rook’s palms sweat. She has no idea what condition Jacob will be in hours from now, but she knows the longer they wait, the worse it’ll get.

“We won’t make it far in the dark,” he had said, carding his fingers through her hair. They get tangled, dried mud caking strands together.

“Then we can rest here, with the tents.” The fire had finally died out. It was quiet.

“No.” He looked at the remains of the camp with hollow eyes, his hand squeezed her wrist. “Not—”

“Away from the fire,” Rook nodded, even though there was nothing left burning.

So here they are. In the clearing. Rook drags the bodies away, far enough that the stench grows weaker, bearable. Jacob settles into the sleeping bag Rook had brought along from the camp. It’s opened all the way, turning the single sleeping bag into a makeshift double, leaving them without the stuffed nylon cover to wrap them in.

It’s okay though, it’s a fairly warm night. They’re no longer up in the mountains and the chill of the night isn’t as bad as she’d worried over. They might not even be in the Whitetails anymore. The air is crisp on her skin, but they’ll be fine. They have jackets and layers. They have—they have each other.

Jacob’s shimmied the makeshift cot to stop against some rocks, sloping up and smoothed enough for him to rest against. Not quite seated but not quite reclining. His red rifle Rook recovered from Fischer’s body leaning against the rock beside him. His knife with Rook, sheathed at her side.

“Shouldn’t lie down,” he explains when she drops onto the nylon. “Better this way for my ribs—bruised, I think.”

_Maybe even fractured._

“I know,” Rook nods, leaning against the rock next to him. “You could lie down still, if you lay on your side. I think.”

“Sure,” he huffs, staring aimlessly into the treeline, puffing out quiet, ragged breaths. She can see the faintest puff of his breath in the air. “With you rolling into me? Not exactly fit for, ah, shit—”

“Cuddling?” she supplies.

“ _That_ —not exactly in proper shape for that right now.”

Rook turns to look at him, eye twitching when her bruised cheekbone lightly collides with the rock surface. When Jacob turns his head to look back at her, she grins. “Doesn’t have to be that way. You could always be _my_ little spoon.”

“In your fuckin’ dreams, Deputy,” Jacob rumbles, low and dangerous, but there’s an amused crinkle to his good eye.

Rook snickers and turns back to face the treeline.

“How’d you manage to kill those two guys anyway? The ones you dragged away jus’ now.” Jacob’s voice is quieter now, raspy and sluggish. “Saw them all torn up. You grow claws, or did good ol’ mother nature save ya?”

“Something like that. A bear.”

“Damn.”

“My bear, though.”

“What?”

“Okay well not _mine_ , but, I mean, he sorta is now. You know Cheeseburger? The bear?”

“Fucking Christ.”

“Nah, just Cheeseburger. Mercs were in the early process of beating my face beyond recognition when he just fucking came outta nowhere and _mauled_ them. Thought I was gonna die too, that a grizzly would be the one to do it in for me. But then I saw the collar.”

“Where’s it now?”

“ _He_ left. I guess? I left him here to chew on these guys while I went to back to the camp. He’s not exactly stealthy.”

“No shit. Goddamn, your own fuckin’ bear. Luck like that doesn’t exist.”

“I’m pretty sure I’ve only made it this far because of several freakishly lucky calls. Kinda scared to see what happens when it runs out.”

“Hasn’t it already?” Jacob snorts derisively, drawing one of his knees up to rest his arm on it. His boots scratch against the nylon with a sound that raises the hairs on Rook’s arms. “With everything that’s happened? People think we’re dead. We got trapped for days. Got stuck with me. I know I’m not—not easy to be around—”

He sighs and drops his arm from his knee, a little too carelessly, too rough. His arm bumps into his side and he tips his head down with a sharp, pained inhale. The tired, dreary expression finds its way back to his face.

Rook leans closer to him. “Sure, it was terrible. But it ended up working out somehow, don’t you think?”

Jacob looks back up to her, icy blues searching her face. He leans in and kisses her, slow and sure. He pulls away after a moment, bumps their noses, their foreheads together, the closeness and weathered scrape of his skin on hers sending jolts of electricity into her veins. She remembers what he said back at the camp.

_Gonna do that every time I feel like I’m fuckin’ dying._

Rook clasps her hand around his, squeezes lightly. “You’ll be okay. We’re gonna find help at first light.”

Jacob scoffs quietly, a hopeless, faithless sound. “Then what?”

Then they would go back to their respective roles, pretend this never happened. That’s the only thing Rook can think of. It’s that or probably getting persecuted or worse by both sides for whatever the fuck this is ( _how fucking romeo and juliet, god_ ). Or sneaking around, ultimately ending up with some kind of sabotage, betrayal, or worse between them.

Or they can just never go back. Stay dead to the world forever. Live in some fucking isolated cottage up in the mountains and stay there till they die. Until Jacob dies from his wounds. They can risk trying to leave Hope County. Live the rest of their days in hiding.

_God, what a dumb fucking fantasy._ She wishes it would work, but she knows better. All of these are just thoughts she shouldn’t dwell on, there’s no point to it.

_Stupid._ Pretending this never happened seems like the safest bet.

But Rook will hang onto this strange pocket dimension they’re in where none of this matters, the outside world is _outside_ , far away from what’s happening here. This temporary limbo where they’re both dead and can live however they want.

“I don’t know,” Rook says, because she really _doesn’t_. She can fret and speculate and spiral as much as she wants but she knows whatever happens is just _gonna happen._ “We’ll figure it out.”

Jacob swallows hard and pulls away from her, settles back into his comfortable little crook in the sloping stone. Rook follows in suit, settling back against the stone, crossing one leg over the other as comfortably as she can on the nylon cushion the sleeping bag provides.

She closes her eyes, letting her mind drift into dark.

Jacob doesn’t let go of her hand.

 

-

 

After almost two hours of hiking through the uneven terrain of the woods, they find a dirt road. Rook’s alertness she had since they woke up at dawn and got moving is suddenly reignited, kicked into gear.

All the walking they’ve done—that _Jacob’s_ done, where every step is followed by a wince and haggard breaths—they hadn’t seen any signs of life. No camps, no vehicles, no Resistance, and no Peggies. Jacob had coughed up blood thrice in all that time, Rook’s doesn’t know how much more his broken body can take.

“How’re you doing?” Rook asks over her shoulder, voice slightly winded from the trek. She moves to walk along the newly discovered dirt road.

“S’fine,” Jacob rasps out, hand over his stitched shoulder. He clenches his jaw as he walks—hobbles, more like. Each step he takes is stilted, and he’s gotten slower since they started, grinding his teeth. It’s a miracle on its own he’s made it this far, that he’s still standing.

Rook starts toward him, hands flying up to check his shoulder—her third attempt. He’s waved her off each time, telling her it’s fine. It’s not like she can do anything if it’s _not_ fine, but she’d like to at least check in on the wound. “Are you sure—”

Jacob steers his injured shoulder away from him, warding her eager arms off with his free hand. “Said it’s _fine_.”

Rook purses her lips, letting her hands fall as she glares up at him. “You don’t look _fine_. You look like shit.”

He jerks his chin towards the road, his skin is sickly pale, his eyes sunken. “Just keep walking. There’s a road already, we’re gonna find a goddamn car.”

She sighs. “Okay, let’s just keep going.”

A wet, hacking sound rises in Jacob’s throat, he spits blood and mucus onto the dirt. _We have to find someone soon._

The path winds downhill, breaking off slightly on some bends. Her anxiety rises with every crunch of their boots in the dirt. She sees tracks from tires and some boot prints here and there, but she has no idea how recent they are.

“Hey Jacob, can you check out these tracks—shit, Jacob?”

He doesn’t walk in a straight line, veering left and right as he hunches down, butterfly circles on the dirt road. His rifle slips off his uninjured shoulder as he stumbles, the strap catching around his elbow. Rook is by his side in seconds, trying to support him up. He leans with his arm heavy on her shoulder, his head bowed from fatigue colliding lightly with the top of her own head. She can feel the heat of his skin pressed into her hair; he’s burning up.

She grabs the collar of his jacket, ready to expose the festering wound beneath it. Jacob’s clammy hand stops her, a vice around her wrist.

“Stop being so fucking dramatic and let me fucking see it,” she hisses at him.

“There is nothing you can do,” he growls, wrenching her hand away. He grabs her chin and roughly pulls her face towards his.

Jacob’s mouth is searing hot on hers, there’s a coppery taste to him when she explores his mouth, and she just kisses him harder. It’s all she can do, try to ease the worry with a kiss, sink her teeth into his bottom lip and try to drain away the pain.

The butt of Jacob’s dangling red rifle bumps against her thigh as his hands wrap around her throat, tangle in her messy hair, pulls at it so she keens up at him more for better access. He presses closer, greedy as there’s a rumble reverberating in his chest, his throat, like someone’s punched the air out of him.

“You’re not—” she says against his parted lips, interrupted as his tongue darts into her mouth again, spreading the coppery tang of blood. “You’re not gonna—fuck, you’ll be fine. You’ll be—okay.”

He doesn’t say anything when she eventually pulls away, slowly extracting herself from his grasp, just sighs into her mouth one last time before letting her go. She pulls lamely at his clammy hand.

“Come on,” she jerks her head towards the road, chews lightly at her kiss-swollen lips. “Let’s keep going.”

Rook leads him down the empty dirt road, fingers loosely entwined with his, tugging him along. She makes sure to walk slower so he can keep up without stumbling more than he already is, feverish and practically delirious. Well, as delirious as Jacob Seed can fucking get.

The treetops rustle through the silence between them as a few birds emerge, beating their wings into the open air. Rook watches them go as she walks, soaring away until they shrink into dots in the pinkish hue of the morning sky.

And then, blessedly, beyond the bend of the dirt, is asphalt. With a breath of relief, Rook lets go of Jacob to stride ahead, towards the main road. No cars—not yet, but someone _has_ to drive by at some point.

“Fuckin’ finally,” Jacob wheezes behind her. He starts to cough again, wet, sickly sounds. Blood gathers at his lips when he hacks thick, red sluices of it onto the dirt, inches away from the asphalt. His wheezing more and more ragged.

“Shit.” Rook walks straight onto the middle of the road, spinning around and desperately trying to spot any incoming vehicles. Nothing. Birds pecking at roadkill in the near distance. “Uh, maybe if we make some noise? A single fucking misfire attracts every asshole with a gun in this county a three-mile radius, maybe we can—”

Jacob’s haggard breathing picks up the pace, a small choking noise with every rise of his chest. With wide eyes, Rook watches as Jacob’s huge stature tips over like a tree cut down, collapsing on the side of the road. His rifle clatters on the solid ground.

Rook rushes towards him, dropping down next to his trembling body. In a panic, she turns him off his side and onto his back. He’s sweating bullets, skin white as a sheet, looking at her with a frantic and far away expression as he shudders violently on the asphalt.

“Shit shit shit,” Rook panics, tugging at his jacket. _He’s going into shock._ _All the fucking exertion on his ribs—his lungs._ She yanks the collar, slipping the jacket off the shoulder he’s fought her away from for so long. Distantly, a sound only registered in the background of her frantic thoughts, she hears the purr of an engine.

“ _Fuck_.” Rook stares down at his shoulder, leaning over him, cold horror frosting the pit of her belly. The wound—the stitches are still in-tact but the skin is a sickening, angry red with puss frothing around each stitch. “Fuck, shit, you asshole, it’s infected!”

Jacob tries to say something, his shivering and hyperventilating hindering the words. His eyes are wide, too much bloodshot white around pale blue. Shaking hands fly up to claw at her shirt, bunching the fabric at her stomach, the other hand finds her neck, a damp pressure on the hollow of her throat.

Rook’s heart is thundering in her ears, her limbs feel like their moving on their own, strings of fear coiled around her arms and puppeting her like a marionette. Her hands are aflutter, first examining the wound, then hovering over his ribcage, then holding his wrist, feeling his weak, erratic pulse under his skin.

He’s dying.

Jacob clings to her shirt, her neck, shuddering and shuddering and shuddering. Broken syllables stumble out of his clenched teeth, it sounds a little bit like her name.

A car door slams, a radio plays faintly.

She’s not equipped for this, there’s nothing—nothing she has or can do to help. She doesn’t know what to do. She settles for cradling his face in her hands, the hair of his beard wiry and distressed at the base of her palm, his rough skin blanched and clammy. The sweat mingles with old blood and grime, the muddy colors of it smear at her touch.

“It’s okay,” she whispers miserably, uselessly.

Rook looks up from Jacob, their hands still anchoring onto each other. It’s a cult pickup, she realizes. Her senses, everything that isn’t _Jacob_ , flooding back to her.

“Sinners!” The Peggie in the trenchcoat shouts as he strides towards them, handgun pointed at Rook. He stops a good 10 feet away.

“Wait, wait—” Her voice is hoarse, weak, to quiet to be heard properly.

The other Peggie, holding a baseball bat steps back in surprise, then a fury settles in. “That’s—that’s Jacob! No, _no_ , what have you done to him!”

She realizes how it looks. The two of them filthy, bloodied and bruised to the point where maybe Jacob’s red hair was the only thing that gave him away. Jacob, dying on the ground with his hand at Rook’s throat and while she’s looming over with her own hands around his skull.

Why else would they be in this position, right? If they’re not in some fight to the death. The Resistance versus the Gate.

The truck’s radio blares over the breath of silence among them.

_—there’s no wait and see_

_just see and wait—_

“Get your hands off of him!” The baseball bat Peggie cries out just as Jacob’s hands fall limp.

“Wait—you don’t understand—”

“For Jacob!” The Peggie in the trenchcoat howls and aims his gun, anguished.

He fires the gun three times. Blinding pain shoots up in her shoulder, then her gut, her arm. She topples backwards, her head crashing onto Jacob’s unmoving legs. It’s over quickly.

Rook’s ears are ringing, she tastes blood, her vision bleaching in and out. She tries to move—to do _something_ —but everything hurts too much, feels like something’s crushing her, burning white hot in her body.

_—when you can sing all through the night_

_preach till the morning light—_

Jacob’s body is dragged out from under Rook, _pain pain pain_ when the momentum has her flipping over face-first into blood pooling on the asphalt. She’s faintly aware of the slick warmth soaking into her shirt. Rook tries and tries and tries to move through the throbbing pain wreaking her body, but all she can do is twitch her fingers. The truck radio sings.

_—but some cannot tell wrong from right_

_jacob’s gonna come and set those sinners free—_

And then, nothing.

 

-

 

Careful hands cradle his face. They brush against his cheeks, glide over his beard and down his to his neck. A soft caress across his damaged skin, rousing him from sleep.

Jacob knows those hands anywhere, he doesn’t even need to open his eyes and see. No one else would dare to touch him that way.

He feels heavy. So, so heavy. Like the murky waters of sleep has revealed itself to be thick tar, dragging him back down the more he tries to carry himself out. The air smells unnatural, clean and sterile. The bed is different too, softer than the block of cheap mattress that was the bunker’s bed.

The Deputy’s hands are gone. There’s no weight against his chest, no soft snore. Just an ache, down in his ribs, a dull pang rising and falling with every breath. He doesn’t feel rested at all. Just bogged down.

It’s wrong. He never sleeps like this—this dreamless black pit of nothing. No battle ringing in his ears, no debris exploding from the ground, no Miller, no Old Man Seed and his belt and switch, no Joseph, no John. Just nothing. Empty. Not peace—a kind of disquiet instead.

Jacob opens his tired, tired eyes.

He’s not in the cramped bunker. Nor is he in the forest sitting on a sleeping bag. The Deputy isn’t here.

He’s in a small, bare bedroom. An IV bag hangs next to the bed, connecting to a needle he can’t feel in his arm. A glance down, and he sees that he’s got fresh bandages. His clothes are gone, a blanket’s neatly draped over him, but he can feel that he’s at least wearing boxers. There’s a flash of panic, but he feels his dog tags cool on his chest and relaxes.

A young woman is humming by the window, watering the flowerpot on the windowsill. He doesn’t need to see her face to know that it’s Faith. The white lace dress and clean, bare feet as branding on her persona as his red hair and damaged face.

It comes crashing down on him. The road. His _weak_ body collapsing, his fever, his consciousness going in and out. The Deputy holding him and telling him _it’s okay_ before he blacks out.

“Where am I?” He feels like he’s talking with a mouthful of gravel. _Where the fuck is the Deputy?_

Faith startles at the sound of him. She turns away from the window, eyes already tearful.

“You’re awake!” She gasps, rushing towards him with the signature lilting gait that makes her _Faith_. She calls out towards the door across his bed. “He’s awake! Get John and the Father!”

There’s a shuffle of footsteps on the other side.

“Faith. Where am I?” He grits out each word, jaw set.

His adopted sister pouts, bats her eyelashes at him. “Look at you, dear brother. Awake for five seconds and already being a _grump_.”

“ _Faith._ ”

“You’re safe, silly!” She smiles wide, patting the side of the bed. Not touching him, never touching him. “The Faithful who found you and killed the sinner who attacking you brought you home to The Father.”

So he’s in Joseph’s Compound. That explains why she called for John as well, he had been staying at Joseph’s Compound ever since the Deputy drove him out of Holland Valley weeks ago with a bullet in his leg and a broken arm.

Jacob runs Faith’s words over in his head again, and his blood runs cold.

“Killed the sinner attacking me?” He says each word carefully, waiting for Faith to stop him, correct him. She doesn’t.

_The sinner, not The Sinner_. His sister’s Faithful were probably too Blissed out to recognize the Deputy behind the dirt and bruises.

Faith hums and nods in a way that’s meant to be comforting, but Jacob just feels numb. Faith sticks out her index finger and thumb to form a gun, she jerks her hand into the air, twitching the thumb down. “ _Bang!_ ”

He sucks in a shaky, shaky breath. So she’s dead.

“You were filthy when they brought you in! Said that it must have been a hell of a fight, the two of you covered in blood and bruises. You were practically dead when my Faithful brought you home, they thought they were bringing you back so we could at least have a body to bury.” Faith’s expression changes to something awed, looking more childish that she usually does. “But you were still with us. And we knew you’d _stay_ with us. The Father _believed_.”

“Where’s… where’s the sinner now?” He exhales out slowly, tries to steady his breathing.

“I dunno,” she shrugs. “They left her there, probably. Too concerned about you. She was just some sinner. The Gates will _not_ be open who those who seek to harm our Family.”

He wants to tell her to go. Tell her to leave him alone. Alone alone alone. He wants to tell her they should have just left him to _die_.

But he can’t, because the door is bursting open and John is rushing through. His hair wet and vest slightly askew, as if he rushed out of the shower. He’s got a cast around his left forearm, a slight limp, and the top of his right ear chipped away by a bullet from the Deputy.

“Thought you’d never wake up.” John takes his hand immediately, drops to the floor by the bed so they’re eye-level. Jacob’s immediately taken back to the John he knew before—small, fragile, and misty-eyed, holding his hand after Old Man Seed’s beatings. Though it’s no longer John’s tiny hand in his, but inked digits of _EDEN_ warmly covering damaged skin.

“How long?”

“Three days,” John whispers.

He wonders if the Deputy’s still lying on the side of the road. Vultures pecking away at her lifeless body.

Then Joseph steps into the room, buttoned-up shirt and yellowed aviator glasses, and John is immediately back on his feet, standing up straight. Faith treads back lightly, retreating into a corner to give as much way for The Father.

The Father approaches slowly, calm and collected.

“Brother, it warms my heart to see you awake at last.” Joseph rests his hand on Jacob’s blanketed leg. The yellow tint of his glasses murk up the softness in his eyes. “You’re safe. You’re home.”

Jacob feels nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... sorry
> 
> i promise it won't stay bad for long!! i just... love torturing these two i guess
> 
> i'm already a good amount into the next chapter though so hopefully i can put that up soon, hopefully before my semester starts next week


	8. Chapter 8

The first thing Rook sees is a blinding bright light. She squints and groans, but the noise exits her mouth as a dry, rattling croak.

“Oh shit, you’re awake!” Someone says from next to her, there’s the sound of flimsy paper ( _a magazine?_ ) flopping onto the ground and with a creaking sound the too bright light swings away, out of sight. “Sorry Po-Po, my bad.”

Rook blinks, the death rattle croak vibrating in her vocal cords again as she tries to speak. Her throat feels so dry, feels like there’s cotton in her mouth. “Sh—Sharky?”

When her vision clears, she sees Sharky, his _what are you smiling at?_ hoodie looming over her. The strings of his hoodie and gold chain dangle over her. His hat is gone and there are bags under his eyes, but he shoots her a lopsided grin all the same.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” he says, then chuckles. “Oh man, I’ve always wanted to say that.”

“What—where—” she tries to get up and an aching pain washes over her, she thumps back down onto the flat pillow beneath her head. “ _Ow_.”

Sharky holds his palms up, hovering around her like he wants to help her but is scared to touch her. “Whoa whoa whoa, wait—yeah stay down. Uh, I really don’t think you should move. Like. At all. You’ve been through some shit, chica.”

“Christ, what the fuck—I’m fucking _dying_ —” Rook groans, almost whines. Sharky always brought out a more, well, immature side. “I’m dying. I’m dead. This is the afterlife, isn’t it? That’s why there was that bright fucking light.”

“Nope,” Sharky chirps, settling to awkwardly pat her leg. “That was just one of them lamps here. Keeping your comatose ass company is boooring business. Like shit, you looked like a damn corpse just lying there all week, needed me some comic books.”

“ _A week?_ ” Rook doesn’t try to sit up again, but she lifts her head slightly and looks around. It’s quite dark, only lit by several lamps, but she instantly recognizes where she is. On a stretcher in Hope County Jail.

“Actually a little more than a week.” Sharky shrugs and holds a plastic cup to her face. “Drink some water. Doc says you need lots of water.”

Rook takes greedy sips as he holds the cup, some of it spilling on her face from the awkward angle. The water trails a pleasant, cold sensation down her dry throat.

“Thanks,” she mumbles as he sets the cup down.

“Okay, I gotta go get the doc,” Sharky says, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. He frowns and scratches his head. “Don’t move. Or try to. Seriously, Dep.”

“No promises,” Rook smiles weakly and watches him go.

She glances down at her aching body. She’s still got her jeans on, though they don’t look as filthy as she remembers. There are traces of mud and dirt, loose threads poking out of worn denim. It looks like her jeans were washed, poorly, which makes her wonder if whoever cleaned her up tried to wash them while they were on her. She’s only in her bra, and with a glance around she finds her flannel, clean save for some stains, hanging over a chair. A chair right next to the IV bag hooked on a pole, needle pushing fluids into her arm.

There’s a big, off-white bandage on her stomach, on her right side while the adhesive edge stops just next to her belly button. A tinge of blood has soaked through the bandage. There’s another on her right shoulder, just above the big ugly bruise an angel’s shovel left on her arm that’s beginning to fade. Her other arm—her left bicep’s wrapped carefully, she tries to move the arm but can feel the muscles ache and throb.

The memories come back to her, surfacing out of murky waters. Jacob literally _dying_ on the ground and the Peggies— _oh. Right._ _But how—_

“Here she is, doc,” Sharky interrupts her thoughts, strolling back into view with Dr. Lindsey at his tail. Sharky looks Rook over, going misty-eyed. “You’re lucky Jess found you when she did. Doc here said if you stayed on that road any longer—”

“Jess and Sharky would have brought back a corpse.” Dr. Lindsey finishes, clipboard in hand.

“Good thing Faith's Peggies are Blissed idiots, right? Couldn't aim for shit.” Sharky crosses his arms over his chest.

Lindsey nods, pushing up his glasses and shooting her a nervous smile. “Missed everything vital, the bullets passed right through you, except for the one in your shoulder. Thankfully, I was able to get it out. They were just 9mms, too. It was _really bad_ but it definitely could have been a lot worse, you might not have been able to hang on as long as you were able to if the bullets were any bigger. You're a helluva fighter, Deputy. It's practically a miracle you hung on long enough to make it to the Jail.”

Sharky, eyes now twinkling, puts a hand on the side of his mouth, dramatically covering his words from Dr. Lindsey as he whispers dramatically to Rook, “I think you’re immortal, Po-Po.”

Dr. Lindsey rolls his eyes. He glances somewhere off to his side, something catching his eye. He clears his throat. “I’ll give you all a moment to catch up. I’ll be back.”

He leaves and Jess appears in his place, walking into sight from behind the divider between Rook and the next stretcher. She regards Rook with a small, guarded smile and a tip of the head.

“Dep.”

“Jess—I—thank you,” Rook breathes. “Thank you for finding me.”

She shrugs, hiding more of her face behind her hair and hood, an uneasy twitch. “Just luck.”

“Jess… are you okay?” Rook feels ridiculous asking this, lying bandaged up on a stretcher.

“She’s been all weird like that since she found ya,” Sharky answers, settling down into his creaking grey chair by Rook’s stretcher. Jess shoots him a withering glare.

Rook goes very still. “Uh, when you found me… just. What happened? How? What—what did you see?”

Jess chews on the inside of her cheek, shifts her weight where she stands, her trademark scowl making its way to her face. “You were—”

“Wait! Fuck—” Rook interjects, wide-eyed, remembering something. “Oh my god—Grace and Nick. Are they—the explosion in the Whitetails—”

“They’re fine.” Jess says, waving a dismissive hand. “They weren’t close enough to get hurt. Nick hasn’t been able to visit with the baby and all, but Grace swung by while you were still out. Hadn’t seen her smile in days.”

“Hearing you kicked the can—it was, uh, it was a rough week.” Sharky says, looking down at the floor.

“Yeah,” Jess says so quietly Rook almost missed it. “Pretty fuckin’ doom and gloom around here.”

“Jess was more doom and gloom than usual, even.”

“Shut the fuck up, Boshaw,” Jess snaps, then sighs. “It hasn't been a great coupl'a weeks.”

Sharky settles back in his chair, pulls his hat out of his back pocket and twists it in his hands—a nervous tick.

“Thought you were _dead_ , Dep.” He mumbles, looking at Rook with the saddest expression she’s ever seen on his face. “And it wasn’t even Peggies that killed ya! Goddamn Eli and the Whitetails didn’t even look guilty ‘bout it. Just so fuckin’ happy they took out big bad Jacob. Well, maybe Wheaty looked a _little_ guilty.”

 _Jacob._ Rook clenches her fists. Her voice scratches against her throat. “So… uh, how’d you guys find me?”

“What were you even doing out there?” Jess asks.

“You first.”

Sharky starts, “Me and Jess were gonna hang out and char some Peggies when—”

“You guys were gonna hang out?” Rook cuts in, eyebrows raised. “ _Voluntarily?_ ”

“Oh, we totally hang out now,” Sharky beams. “Proper friends! Not how folks are just, uh, y’know friendly with me to hang out with you. I mean all our friends are great, but, man, I only really see them when they’re hanging out with you. And Hurk don’t count ‘cuz he’s family.”

There’s no malice in his voice but Rook’s chest tightens anyway. “You’re my friend, Shark. One of my best.”

“Thanks, chica.” Sharky ducks his head down, chuffed. He slips his hat back onto his head and looks up again between her and Jess. “But, like, you’re not my _only_ real friend now.”

“That’s great.” Rook flashes him a watery smile. “I love ya, buddy.”

“Shit, I really missed you. Love ya too, Po-Po.”

“Get a room.” Jess scoffs, though there’s no venom to it.

Sharky scrunches his face at Jess. “Oh, uh, I don’t think me and you are _there_ yet, Jess. Sorry. But we’re still friends, right?”

“Barely,” Jess mutters, eyes narrowing. “Thin fuckin’ ice, boshaw.”

Rook smiles wider at the exchange. _God, I’ve missed them._

Sharky pouts and looks away from Jess, scratching his elbow idly. “Shit, you guys, I totally forgot what we were talking about jus’ now.”

“I’ll explain, then.” Jess sighs and rolls her eyes. She walks over to the wall the head of Rook’s stretcher is up against and leans on it, carefully finding a spot between all of the picture frames hanging up there. She crosses her arms over her chest.

“Me and Sharky were gonna meet up to kill some Peggies by some riverside shrine,” she says. “I was already in the area, so I decided to do some huntin’. Knew there was some Grouse hanging out in the trees in the area so I got to it. About half an hour later I heard gunshots somewhere south. Nearby. Went to check it out and saw you.”

Rook fidgets with a loose thread on her jeans, trying to play it cool. “That’s all you saw?”

“Those two Peggies were putting a body in the truck bed.” Jess pauses for a moment and studies Rook. Then shrugs. “Didn’t see who it was. Heard ‘em say something about a ‘proper funeral’ then they took off.”

“Oh,” Rook says lamely, staring at the ceiling. Jacob’s dead. She ignores the strange ache in her chest, different from the ache of her wounds, a hollow feeling. _The fuck did you think was gonna come out of that, anyway? Nothing but trouble. It’s better this way._

“Also, Jess was gonna rob ya,” Sharky grins.

Jess makes a face. “Thought you were dead, ‘course I was gonna take your shit. I didn’t even know it was you till I got close enough. Radioed Sharky to get there right away so we could drive you to Dr. Lindsey.” She shifts uncomfortably. “You were practically dead, Dep. Bleedin’ everywhere. Barely breathing. Pulse so slow I couldn’t even tell if you were alive. The only thing that told me you weren’t gone yet was your fingers twitchin’, like you were trying to grab at something. Then in Sharky’s ride you were making this gross croaking noise. Like a fucking death rattle.”

“It was pretty terrifying.” Sharky shuddered. “Almost crapped my pants.”

“Was I really that bad?” Rook asks quietly, voice hoarse.

Sharky drops his eyes to the floor once again. Jess presses her lips together tightly and tips her head in one solemn nod.

“Well I’m glad I’m back,” Rook smiles weakly.

“Us too, Deputy.” Jess says. “Us too.”

Dr. Lindsey steps through the doorway, clearing his throat. “Um, guys.”

Sharky claps his hands on his thighs and gets out of his seat. “Time for us to go.”

Jess looks and Rook one last time and pushes herself off the wall. “Rest up, Dep. ‘Cause when you’re on your feet again we got shit to do. And—I gotta talk to you.”

“I’ll do my best,” Rook chuckles, though in her state it just sounds like an uneven, dry exhale.

After her friends shuffle out of the Jail’s makeshift medbay, Dr. Lindsey approaches her stretcher and gives her a once-over. “How’re you feeling?”

“Like roadkill.”

“Well, at least you aren’t.” He peels back the bandage on her stomach and squints at it. Rook stares at the ceiling, avoiding looking at the wound as if it’ll make the aching go away. Lindsey sighs softly. “I’ll change your bandages and then you should get some sleep. You’re gonna need _a lot_ of bed rest.”

Rook sighs shakily and shuts her eyes tight, settling her head back into the scratchy flat pillow. She tries not to think about how much softer the pillow back at the bunker was, or the body that would sleep next to her.

 

-

 

Jacob finds out that the man’s name is Lucas. The Faithful who _saved our Jacob_ , Joseph says.

The man who killed the Deputy.

Jacob met Lucas the fourth day after he woke. He was still in bed, needle taped to his arm and exhaustion in his bones. Faith knocked on his door at midday like clockwork. She had no reason to be at Joseph’s Compound, but she said once that it was lonely in her region knowing _all_ of her brothers were here. She could help nurse Jacob and John back to good shape, and Joseph took to the idea splendidly.

After all, she’s not really a Seed unless she’s desperate for _family_.

She’ll return to the Henbane when she knows she’s helped her family, she trusts her people to take care of things while she’s gone.

Faith traipsed into Jacob’s room every day at noon with either a small watering can or a flowerpot in hand. _To lift your spirits_ , she’d said when he asked her about the flowers on his windowsill. He merely grunted in response. He doesn’t really care, and it’s not like he can do anything about it practically trapped in the bed. At least they’re not Bliss flowers. No, they’re a bright bright yellow, even brighter when the sunlight slips through his window.

So on his fourth day of bedrest, Jacob raised a brow at Faith’s lack of watering can or flowerpot. Instead there was a man with her, scraggly chestnut brown hair a nest on his head and a beard so grown it curtained his neck. His trenchcoat was worn and dirty. He smelled like old sweat and Bliss. He looked around John’s age, though he may be younger, the beard maturing his appearance.

No one else but his family and doctors were permitted to see him, so the man must have been important.

Jacob had watched silently as Faith guided him to Jacob, the man trailing after her with a steady gait.

“Brother,” she said in her lilting, saccharine voice, placing a dainty hand on the bed just inches away from his bare shoulder while her other hand lightly held the man’s elbow. “Meet the Faithful who saved your life.”

“Lucas, sir. It was an honor to aid you,” said Lucas, eyes respectfully averted but chest puffed out in pride. He was proud of what he’d done. “I am grateful God put me on that road while you were in your time of need, otherwise Eden’s Gate would be lost without you.”

It sounded rehearsed. Not in an insincere way, but in a way that made Jacob think that this man recited this over and over again in his head prior to this. That he wanted to make a good impression.

Well, he had certainly made an impression on Jacob.

“Lucas,” Jacob said in a calm, low voice. The name tasted bitter in his mouth. “I owe you a life debt.”

Faith giggled and Lucas smiled.

And Jacob? Jacob thought only of the Deputy.

He was only with her for a week. _With_ her for even less, one would think Jacob would easily forget her.

Yet here he is, about two weeks later fucking _haunted_.

He’s gone practically the last two decades avoiding intimacy of any kind. He never needed it, no, he’s survived without it. Save for a few exceptions.

His brothers, the only two people in the world he’d never think twice about letting into his space. The occasional—the _scarce_ —bedpartners on nights where he’s willing to cave into his vices and maybe someone can overlook his damaged exterior. Always gone the next morning, sometimes even halfway through the night, shoved or fleeing out of the bed from his night terrors. One and done, either he leaves or kicks them out on the rare occasion they’d rather stay. Then there was Miller, the brother bound to him not by blood but bond—his _test_. Faith, the sister he’s slowly letting in. They’re both trying, maybe Faith more so than Jacob, but troubled pasts and a fuckton of other dysfunctional family shit make it difficult.

Then, _then_ , there’s the fucking Deputy. The fucking Deputy getting inside the walls he’s built to keep people out. She got under his skin in such a short span of time it makes Jacob’s head spin. He’s always told himself he doesn’t need intimacy, that it’s a weakness, but god, does he want it with her. Want _ed_ it.

Shit, he was even ready to die for her. Fuckin’ kissing her like it’d never happen again—he _knew_ it’d never happen again but he thought it would be because of _his_ fucking death.

After she wiped out the mercenaries— _culled the herd_ —she had him thinking maybe what she said that night in the bunker was right. Maybe his sacrifice wasn’t meant to be dying for Joseph. Maybe, if he was to die for _someone else_ , that would be his purpose, his sacrifice. He took comfort in the fact that maybe after his sacrifice this would all end, the fighting would stop, his family wouldn’t put themselves in such a position of danger anymore.

Maybe if she carved out his still-beating heart she’d take it to his family, offer it up in bloody hands telling them _this was his sacrifice,_ they’d stop. The fighting would all stop. He’d never have to worry about his family again, he’d never have to see John broken and bleeding again. That’s a fucking sacrifice.

He was dying, so fucking ready for the release of it, and instead it was _her_. Instead she’s gone and he’s still here.

He built a door just for her and she stepped through with a stick of dynamite strapped to her chest, sparks eating away at the fuse. Fucked everything up in just a week and Jacob doesn’t know how to fucking deal with it except to shut it all out. But it’s hard, there is just _so much_. Was so much. Was.

Two weeks of bed rest he’s finally on his feet. A restless energy crackles inside him, clawing at his chest. He’s mostly healed—new scars and just a small, faded discoloration on his ribs. A dull ache all around, easy to tune out.

“Do not push yourself too hard, Jacob.” Joseph tells him, bony hands gripping his shoulders. “I just got my brother back, I do not want to lose him again. Keep to the island.”

They stand in the middle of the gates to the compound, the ornate trellis shadowing over the two brothers like shutters on a window. A warped silhouette of the Gate’s insignia drapes over Joseph’s cheekbone.

“It’s just hunting, Joe. I’ve stayed cooped in that damn room for too long,” Jacob sighs, tugging the strap of the hunting rifle slung on his shoulder. The weight of the gun felt wrong, it wasn’t _his_ sniper rifle. Left on the road apparently, the Faithful—fuckin’ _Lucas_ —too preoccupied with saving him than to pick up his weapons. Some roadside scavenger’s probably taken his shit by now, plucking it right off the Deputy’s cold body.

He shoves the image out of his head.

“Is there even anything to hunt for on this island?” John asks, walking past them. His limp is virtually gone now, the muscles in his leg fully recovered. His signature coat billows as he brushes past them as he makes his way towards the white pickup truck. Two of Jacob’s Chosen sit in the truck bed, obediently waiting for their Herald.

Jacob only has a handful of his own men on Joseph’s island, those strong enough to survive the Whitetails taking back the mountains laid scattered around Hope County. Some did odd jobs for the family, while some stick to the Whitetails in hiding, doing what they still can to weaken the Resistance.

Nobody outside of Joseph’s Island knows he’s alive yet. He was kept secret at first, when it was unsure whether he’d recover from his near-death experience, but now that he’s on his feet the rest of the island has been graced with the news. Jacob suggested he lay low for a while, the family will only reveal he’s alive when it’s the right time. When they have something that’ll weaken the Resistance, perhaps the news that Jacob lives could serve as a catalyst to morale.

But first, Jacob’s got to wait out his wounds.

Jacob turns around to follow John, Joseph’s hands dropping from his shoulders. “You coming along?”

“Why else would I be heading to your truck?” John quips, taking a hunting rifle from a nearby weapons rack. He checks it for ammo and enters the passenger seat of the pickup without another word.

“I think he may be a bit restless, staying here for so long,” Joseph admits, corners of his mouth quirking up sheepishly. “Just as you are.”

“I don’t blame him,” Jacob mutters. “Don’t know how you stay here all the time, Joe. It’s fuckin’ suffocating.”

Joseph frowns, his usual placid expression twisting slightly at Jacob’s profanity. “Brother.”

Jacob says nothing in return, just raises an eyebrow. Joseph always frowns upon profanity, but he’s never really done anything to his brothers for it aside from a disappointed tone.

His brother sighs, eyes shutting behind yellow aviators. “Alright, I’ll let you go.”

He takes Jacob’s nape and presses their foreheads together.

“We’ll be back around sundown,”Jacob tells him.

Crossing the short distance to the pickup, Joseph’s people are bustling around doing their day-to-day duties. By the small Bliss garden, several of Faith’s people are busying themselves tending to the flowers. The sight of a trenchcoat and a familiar chestnut beard has Jacob focusing on steadying his breath, clenching and unclenching his fists.

Lucas notices Jacob and gives him a respectful nod.

“You, there! You’re the one who brought my brother back, aren’t you?” John calls out. Jacob sees him poking his head out of the passenger seat window of the pickup, elbow sticking out, the sleeves of his finely tailored coat covering his tattoos.

“Yes, sir.”

Even standing several feet away from him, Jacob can see his brother’s eyes light at the word.

“Why don’t you join us?” John says, attentive blue eyes flitting between Jacob and Lucas.

“I—I don’t know much about hunting, sir.” Lucas says with wide eyes, scratching at his overgrown beard. “I have other duties to attend to as well.”

Jacob squints at John. _What is he doing?_

“I’m sure those duties can wait,” John presses, unwilling to take no for an answer. “My sister will understand if you have to step away. You’ve made yourself quite the celebrity with your heroic act.”

Lucas looks helplessly between John and Jacob.

“Come.” John nods, patting one tattooed hand on the truck door.

Lucas is cornered. “Yes, sir.”

John hums, pleased, and settles back into his seat. He meets Jacob’s suspicious gaze with impatient eyes. Jacob sighs, runs a hand over his face, and gets into the truck.

 

-

 

John doesn’t shut up in the woods. He asks Lucas questions about himself, asks what he thinks of the Gate’s work, asks how he had saved Jacob.

Jacob treks ahead, gritting his teeth at the chatter, the memories said chatter drudges up.

Chapped, soft lips. Hands cradling his face whispering _it’s okay_. He pushes the memory down down down, but his jaw tingles where he remembered her hands.

The two of his Chosen split up from them as soon as they’re out of the truck, agreeing with Jacob that they’d meet in about two hours, at sunset.

Jacob understood their desire to leave, his Chosen were often hunters who worked better alone, even if they’ve lost their Judges after Eli’s people took back the Whitetail Mountains. Plus, he guessed that they didn’t want to stick around for John and Lucas’ chatter. He understood that _completely_. The talk itself is enough to scare away whatever prey is around them.

“The sinner on Brother Jacob was a coward,” Lucas says, matter-of-fact. He holds his hunting rifle uselessly in his hands, not even keeping his eye out for animals for game.

“Oh? What makes you say that?” John asks, a coy lilt to his voice. The way John holds himself and treats Lucas is like this is a fucking game. It infuriates Jacob, because it feels like _he’s_ the plaything and John is dangling Lucas around him.

“She had her hands around his head, ready to smash him onto the ground. She was crying, I think. It was hard to tell with how dirty and beaten her face was. Could have been sweat, but she looked so scared.”

Jacob’s chest tightens and he looks away from John and Lucas, looks down the sights of his rifle for something, anything. Anything that will let him fire off a blast that could cut the conversation.

Lucas continues, pride in his voice. “Then when she looked up and saw us, she just pleaded with us. Probably begging for her life, but then I saw who she was about to kill and I knew she deserved no mercy. She was past saving.”

“My, that’s truly riveting,” he hears a dry note in John’s voice. Jacob doesn’t even have to look away from the hole he’s boring into a bush through his sights to know that John’s flashing his charlatan smile, luring Lucas in with some sort of feigned interest. “Have you seen anything _interesting_ yet, Jacob?”

Jacob sees _red_ , but he bites his tongue. “No. Gonna go scout up ahead.”

He hears John’s disappointed _tsk_ and strides away from them without another word.

Jacob doesn’t look for deer, birds, rabbits—he slings his hunting rifle over his shoulder, far away from John and Lucas and stops over by the northern edge of Joseph’s island. He rests against a tree near a cliff edge and just pauses, staring at the calm waters, staring at the Whitetail region misted in the distance.

The region he lost. Another loss. Sure, he still has his family safe and sound, but _fuck_ does he feel like he’s failed somehow.

He’s lost in thought, fucking _brooding_ , thinking about her, when there’s a snap of a twig behind him.

Jacob spins around, aiming his rifle straight at a startled Lucas. For a moment Jacob wishes the man was sneaking up to attack him, to hurt him—just _something_ to let Jacob justify spilling this man’s blood.

Jacob lowers the rifle with a grunt, turns back to stare out at the water, the sun’s just about to touch the horizon. “Where’s John?”

“He said he’d go back to the truck.” Lucas’ voice is a good octave lower than before, like he’s puffed out his chest and wants Jacob to notice him.

“Didn’t go with him? Back at the compound you said you don’t hunt,” Jacob says. “It shows.”

Lucas approaches, stands a respectful distance beside Jacob on the cliff, eager, hesitant. “May I speak freely, Brother Jacob?”

Jacob grunts wordlessly.

Lucas takes that as a yes. “When Sister Faith took me to see you, you said you owed me a life debt, do you remember?”

He waits for Jacob to reply, to acknowledge. Jacob doesn’t move a muscle save for the minute twitch of his hands, patience wearing thin.

“I would like to train for you, join your Chosen,” Lucas continues. “I think I’ve proved myself worthy enough. Sister Faith seemed very pleased with my actions as well and I think she’d let me work under your wing if you asked.”

Jacob scoffs, no longer able to hide the contempt he feels. John isn’t around, he doesn’t exactly have to hide it anymore. “ _You_ think you can become one of my goddamn Chosen?”

Lucas frowns, scratching idly at his long beard, his expression confused like this isn’t going how he thought it would. “Yes, sir. After I killed that sinner, I must have proven myself to you and your family. You wouldn’t have brought me along to hunt with you if I wasn’t worthy enough.”

“You think I _wanted_ your useless ass here?” Jacob barely holds back the sneer, shaking his head, blood pressure rising. “That was all John. Maybe you should head back and ask if you can join _him_ instead.”

“I thought—”

Jacob stares him down with cold, dead eyes. “You can’t even hunt. Didn’t even try. Your gun’s fucking useless in your hands while you try to impress my brother with your boasting.”

Lucas stands up straighter, furious and confused. “I’ve killed for Eden’s Gate. I’ve killed for your family. I saved your life by killing that sinner before she killed you!”

Jacob rolls his eyes. There he goes again about killing the Deputy, like a fucking broken record. He doesn’t want to _hear_ it anymore. He doesn’t know what he’s gonna do if he has to keep hearing it over and over and over again—imagining her death every single time.

“I can be one of your soldiers. I deserve it. I can be _strong_. I can be of your service, help you take back the Whitetails!”

The wind howls through the trees. Jacob grits his teeth, red flaring in his vision. He rounds on Lucas and grabs his shoulders, spinning the leaner man around to face the edge of the island, the Whitetail Mountains in the distance.

“You see that? You fuckin’ see that?” Jacob jerks the man’s shoulders when he doesn’t reply. “ _Answe_ r when you’re spoken to.”

“I—yes, I see—”

Jacob should stop, he knows he’s going too far with this but it’s just so damn _loud_ in his head that he needs to do _something_. “Y’think you can get that all back? Cull all the fucking Whitetails yourself? Think you’ll be the fucking hero, that it’ll be _only you?_ ”

“No—Yes—Sir, I mean—”

“You think that’ll make up for what you’ve done?” Jacob hisses, fingers digging into Lucas’ shoulders. His trenchcoat smells faintly of Bliss. “For what you’ve _taken?_ ”

Lucas is shaking, sputtering out nonsense words Jacob can’t bother to comprehend. His blood is boiling, the evening chill does nothing to sedate it. This man is nothing, too eager, too green behind the ears. An overcompensating braggart, greedy for recognition. Jacob doesn’t even know what John was fucking playing at, bringing this man along with them. He doesn’t deserve to become one of his Chosen, let alone one of his soldiers.

He fucking killed _her_.

Jacob lets go of Lucas’ trembling shoulders and _shoves_.

Lucas stumbles at the force of the push, wheeling forward with a stifled cry and disappears over the grassy cliff edge. There’s his goddamn life debt.

There are no high cliffs or mountain tops on Joseph’s island, there is no plummet to death. There are only steep edges and falls just high enough to break bones. When Jacob looks over the edge, breathing heavily, there’s a rocky shore, and a very short drop. Mild waves calmly roll into the slope of the shore, and Lucas is crumpled in the shallow water.

It was an accident, Jacob will say. He got spooked by some wildlife and tumbled over the cliff. Hit is head and drowned. Jacob will tell his story, it doesn’t matter if people don’t believe him so long as they don’t question him.

Lucas, broken on the shore with a splat of blood on the rocks next to his head, moves. He drags himself through the shallow water with his arms scraping against the rocks, sluggish and broken but alive.

“Shit,” Jacob hisses and goes around the edge, coming to where it slopes and skids down on the dirt to the shore.

He’s gotta finish the job, but make sure it still looks like an accident. He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to do that with his anger uncontained.

Jacob’s boots crunch on the stones and sand of the shore, making his way around the curve of the cliff towards Lucas.

Lucas is sputtering, midway through dragging himself out of the water. His face is bloody, his chestnut beard damp with it. The gentle waves push and pull, the bloody water around him almost comes up to his shoulders. The water’s lit orange from the setting sun, making the blood diluting in the water look deeper, brighter. Lucas doesn’t see Jacob yet, but he’s reaching out with one arm, looking up with a bloody, broken face.

Lucas is reaching out to John, who’s calmly standing by the shore.

Jacob stops dead in his tracks. John isn’t looking at Lucas, he’s looking at Jacob.

Jacob’s heart hammers in his chest. John must have come to get them—how much did he see? How much did he _hear_? Or perhaps Jacob prowling towards Lucas with murder in his eyes is enough of a giveaway.

He doesn’t—he can’t hurt John, he _can’t_. All he can do now is wait for his younger brother’s next move. The anger inside Jacob slowly resides, cold dread thrumming under his skin instead. Jacob’s murdering one of the Gate, one of the people they swore to protect. John had seemed to take an interest, if not liking towards the man as well—just how is he going to react?

Since reuniting with his brothers all those years ago, he had come to notice that John is unpredictable with his anger. While Jacob is mostly a cold, fine-tuned anger channeled into what he does best, John is the sea—an untamed rage. A storm in one moment and calm the next. Even in his calm there is always an undertow waiting to drag you down should you dive too deep. Despite their differences, the both of them are intimately familiar with an anger that is always there, sheathed away.

With his whirlwind thoughts Jacob can only dread the worst John can do, unable to think of anything that might happen that isn’t Jacob in deep shit or shunned.

John tears his crackling eyes away from Jacob, and looks down at Lucas, slowly stepping closer to him, his expensive shoes splash lightly.

He lowers himself, coattail sloshing in the water as one hand cradles Lucas by the base of his cracked skull. There’s a softness in John’s eyes—a softness Jacob has only seen in the early days of the Gate when he would be present during John’s baptisms. Lucas is blindly pawing for his savior, clutching John’s sleeve and disturbing the bloody water.

“Please…” Lucas gurgles, so quiet and strangled Jacob almost missed it. “Please…”

“Hm... _avaritia_ ,” John sighs, serene, and dunks Lucas’ head into the water.

Jacob holds his breath, waiting for Lucas’ head to emerge from the water, for John to assist him out of the water and take him to Joseph, for John to show this as a shining example of his loyalty to _The Father_ , for Jacob to be left in the dust.

But Lucas doesn’t come up for air. He’s still for a heartbeat, then kicks and struggles under John’s steady hand. John doesn’t move a muscle, not even when thrashing arms collide with his chest, splashing water everywhere. He just stares down at the head under his hand with an electric fascination.

For a minute there’s no movement on the shore except for thrashing limbs and splashing water, Jacob watches the scene, frozen to the spot.

And then the water goes still, settling into minute ripples. Lucas no longer moves, and when John removes his hand the body floats a foot away from him.

John stands up, his front side soaked, and shakes bloody water off his hands, drops flying. He wades out of the water and looks at Jacob, the corner of his mouth upturned, showing teeth.

Jacob regards him with a wary expression. “John—”

“It’s a shame poor brother Lucas hit his head and drowned, don’t you think?” John smiles, devoid of guile but his eyes twinkle with something else. He pops the collar of his coat to fend off the breeze on his wet neck. “Now, are you going to tell me what that was about?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> round 2 of me introducing an oc and killing them off in the same chapter
> 
> avaritia - greed in latin
> 
> it bums me so much that sharky supposedly has 0 friends (minus the deputy) in canon, like people are friendly with him but no one willingly hangs out with my boi :( i will GIVE him friends


	9. Chapter 9

“Jacob, if pick could your jaw up off the ground and start talking?” John asks him, arms crossed and eyebrow raised.

Lucas’ dead body floats face down in the water, gliding along the gentle push and pull of the tide breaking on the shore, blood smoky in the water around his head.

John looks utterly unfazed by what just happened, what they had both done to their sister’s Faithful. Jacob has to remind himself that this is _John_ —that in that last few years he had given up his old vices for entirely new ones.

Not John Duncan, coked up half the time with the revolving door of men and women while Joseph frowned behind yellow tint—but John Seed, baptist, flayer, murderer, and brother to murderers alike. Though this was the first time Jacob had ever seen him kill one of their own, it’s not the first he’s heard of it. Whispers of John’s outbursts ripple through hushed conversations of the flock.

Though this didn’t seem to be an act of anger from John—more an act of Family.

Jacob regains his composure, rolling his shoulders and tensing up, jaw set. John wants answers. What does he do, lie? His blood pounds in his ears.

“We should bring the body back,” Jacob starts, “Faith’ll want to—”

“ _Brother_. Perhaps there is something you wish to confess?”

“Johnny—”

“ _Jacob_.”

“What do you want from me?” Jacob sighs, running a hand down his weary face. “What do you want me to say here? _Yes?_ _Yes_ to some confession?”

“You’ve been… _off_ since we got you back. And this?” John throws an arm out towards the body in the water. “This confirms it. You’re keeping _secrets_ , dear Brother. I haven’t seen your rage uncontrolled that way in a long time. Honestly, _you_ are supposed to be the _better one_.”

Jacob sighs again and staggers back, stepping up the slope of the hill and settling to sit on the patchwork surface of soil and grass. He props both arms up on his raised knees and shrugs wearily up at John. His brother’s not going to stop pushing until he gets something. Might as well fuckin’ give him something.

“Yeah, shit, guess I have been _‘off’_ ,” he says, staring out into the water instead of looking John in the eye.

John hums, stepping closer then frowning.

“Y’gonna sit with me?” Jacob asks, brow raised. “If this is one of your _confessions_ , I got a lotta shit to spit out.”

John’s mouth presses into a grimace and glances down at himself. “This coat—these pants are made from—”

“ _John_. If you want me to talk. Sit. Still got some time left before sundown, I’ll gladly sit here in silence instead while you worry over your luxuries. Y’already got water all over them anyway.”

“It’s only water, though,” John mutters in complaint, but settles down on the slope next to Jacob.

Jacob rolls his eyes. “Then I’ll push you into the water after this to get the dirt off your ass, how ‘bout that?”

John grumbles something incoherent under his breath. The two of them are quiet for a breath, Jacob looking out at the mountains in the distance and John wiping the remainder of water off his hands and onto his waistcoat.

When Jacob looks back at him, John’s face morphs back into a leery, shark-like smile with too many teeth, flashing Jacob with curious eyes. “Secrets are better shared.”

Jacob shoots him a doubtful look, head tilted down and forehead creased. “You better be fuckin’ sure about that.”

“Though this is, well, _informal_ … confessions are meant to be private. Whatever you have to say stays between you and I, Jacob.”

Translation: _I won’t tell Joseph_.

“Don’t know where to start,” Jacob grumbles.

“Let’s weed out the discrepancies, then. You told us you were stuck alone underground that entire week. You made it through some unfinished mining shafts, ventured through caves, and stayed in a bunker you found where supplies were plentiful. Then you found a way out through a hole blasted in the wall and left. You stumbled upon angels who put up a good tussle. And then?”

“And then I was brought back to Joseph.”

John tuts, adjusting the sunglasses ever perched on his head. “No. You said you were attacked when you were looking for the nearest road. You were already injured from the angels and then your attacker almost got the better of you, yes?”

“Yeah.”

“So what exactly are you leaving out?”

Jacob takes the easy route, his mouth setting into a grim line. “There were people outside the cave. Outsiders—not from the county, not from the Gate.”

He studies John when he says this, looking for any hint of recognition on the ever-shifting expressions of his brother’s face. Jacob doesn’t see anything but disappointment, confusion, and curiosity cycle on his face. A sense of relief washes over Jacob, one he didn’t know he was bracing himself for.

John isn’t the turncoat, the mole leeching the Gate’s resources. He can let that parasitical suspicion go. Jacob doesn’t know how he’d deal with that if it were.

“Who were they?” John asks, eyes slightly wider. “Where are they now?”

“ _Mercenaries_ ,” Jacob seethes the word, remembering the beatings to his torso, the belligerent one who seemed to sickly enjoy hitting the Deputy. “They wanted to export our Bliss, sell it to someone outside the County. Apparently we have a snake in our _flock_ , someone in high enough power to keep our patrols away from them as well as cart them shit tons of Bliss.”

“Dead?” John asks, a vein pulsing on his temple.

Jacob nods slowly. John looks at him, expectant, waiting for Jacob to say more. He doesn’t.

“You’re terrible at this,” John sighs, shaking his head.

“At lying?” Jacob squares his shoulders back. “It’s the truth. And I think I’m a half-decent liar.”

“Lying to _me_. It’s sad, Jacob.”

Leaving out truths isn’t quite the same as lying, but John can still sniff it down like a bloodhound. Despite himself, Jacob chuckles, a mirthless sound. “Right. Why do I even bother?”

John quirks a brow. “I’m asking myself that question right now. Come _on_ , just spit it out.”

“Fine,” Jacob grits out. “The mercenaries are dead but I wasn’t the one to kill them. In fact they wanted to ransom me—”

“This is like pulling teeth,” John exclaims, throwing his hands up. He stops and shakes his head. “No, actually, pulling teeth is easier than _this_.”

“I’m telling you what you want—”

“Just admit you _knew_ the sinner that idiot over there killed!” John points an inked finger towards Lucas’ body in facedown in the water.

“ _Fine_ , yes. I did.”

“And?”

“And _what?_ ” Jacob all but snarls at his brother, fists clenched. “Want me t’say that she killed the mercs? That she was stuck with me the whole time? That I fucking killed _him_ ,” he jerks his hand over at the body, “because he killed _her?_ ”

John’s nostrils flare at Jacob’s hostile tone, but he keeps his cool, eyes lighting up with satisfaction. “Yes. I wanted you to admit you had a problem with Lucas, that’s _why_ I strung him along with us. I watched him push all your buttons and waited for you to burst—but I expected shouting, humiliation, even a fight. But you killed him, Jacob—don’t look at me like that, I know _I_ technically killed him but this is on you, _Brother_.”

Jacob grunts in reply, refusing to grace his brother with a response.

“I just want to know why.” John smiles, twitchy, electric, clasping his hands together. “Call it mild concern for my eldest brother mixed with... morbid curiosity.”

There’s another pause. John doesn’t push him while he clenches his teeth and gathers words.

“She deserved better,” Jacob mutters. Somewhere in the dark corners of his head, he finds it ludicrous that he would think the woman who’s caused his family so much pain _deserved_ better. He narrows his eyes at Lucas’ body, then stares back out at the sunset’s shimmering reflection in the water. “He was Weak. The least she deserved was someone Strong behind the bullet.”

“Who was she?”

Jacob says nothing. He can’t make himself say anything, her name dying in his throat. Instead, he just looks at John.

John’s eyes dart around in the silence, gears turning in his head. Jacob knows he’s onto it, recalling everyone who was there the day of the explosion in the Whitetails. John stills, coming to a conclusion, hooking at the possible peoples and reeling them in. Then his blue eyes dart to Jacob, they assess Jacob’s wary look, and John’s smile grows crooked.

“She was the Deputy, wasn’t she?”

Jacob doesn’t answer. He fidgets with his hands, examining his knuckles. The skin has long healed from his outbursts of attacking solid surfaces. If he ignores John and focuses hard enough, he can still feel a semblance of the Deputy’s light fingers wrapping gauze around his hands.

John takes Jacob’s silence as a yes and leans away from him. Jacob’s not looking at his face but John’s voice softer. Curious and blithe, but softer. “You cared for her.”

“ _John_.”

“She almost killed me.”

“I know,” Jacob looks at John fiercely, fists clenching again. “Don’t you dare think I forgot about that for a _second_. Don’t—I don’t know what I was fuckin’ doing with her.”

“I don’t blame you,” John says, sighing. “Hm, Little Miss Wrath. And I thought _my_ interest in her was disappointing Joseph.”

Jacob makes a strangled noise. “You can’t—”

“I’m not going to tell Joseph,” John waves a hand dismissively then raises a brow. “I was a lawyer, remember? We all know what happens to snitches.”

“You can’t say anything about the mercenaries, either,” Jacob says firmly, hoping his brother latches onto the change of subject. “I don’t know who’s in on it. The less people know, the better. I have to investigate this quietly.”

“ _We_ have to investigate this quietly. I’m on your side, remember?” John frowns and fiddles with the cufflinks on his coat. “We should press Faith. It’s her product, after all. And we should—”

John stops himself, a hint of fear flashing in his eyes.

“We should what?” Jacob prods quietly. Fear painted on John was not something he liked to see.

“ _You_ should talk to Joseph, maybe. See if anything he says doesn’t add up.” John swallows hard. A swarm of emotions swim in his eyes, and Jacob can’t read them fast enough. “I shouldn’t push. After my failure with the Deputy, Joseph’s been colder to me. It’s not obvious, but I can tell.”

“What did he say to you?”

“Nothing really. I… I don’t even know if he will allow me into the Gates of Eden anymore.”

John’s seemed to make himself smaller, chin tucked down and shoulders hunching ever so slightly. A moment from the bunker flashes through Jacob’s head.

_I’m not scared of Joseph._

_John is. Plain as day on his face when I saw him and The Father together._

There’s a coldness in Jacob’s bones. He knew John respected Joseph, propped him up on a pedestal as high as the statue in the Henbane. With that kind of respect there’s always a level of awe and fear, but for John this was different, and Jacob hates that he’s only begun to notice it now. He doesn’t know how long this has been going on—Joseph quietly threatening John, _their_ John, with some kind of exile. He knows Joseph had kept him at arm’s length, unhappy with John’s lack of control and impulses—but to hold John’s hope for salvation over his head?

John is the brother he lost too early. The one he felt the worst about not being able to protect. Old Man Seed, the Duncans—his little brother is breaking again and Jacob _hates_ that he didn’t notice sooner.

“What exactly did he say to you?” Jacob asks, voice low and gravelly.

“If I didn’t help the Deputy didn’t reach Atonement, the Gates of Eden would be shut to me,” John whispers, a quiet rage burning in his eyes, contrasting the note of fear and dread in his voice. “I _failed_. Joseph said nothing to me when I reached his island. _Nothing_. Now he keeps me away. I don’t know—”

Jacob grabs John’s arm, squeezing so tight John gasps. He steels John’s wary gaze, nearly snarling in his face. “I will _not_ let him shun you. Joe may be _The Father_ , but that doesn’t mean shit to me if he’s leaving you behind.”

Jacob lets go of his arm and John blinks for a moment, stunned. Then he pulls back with a shaky sigh. “Okay.”

“I _won’t_ let that happen, d’ya understand?” Jacob says firmly. “Tell me you understand, John.”

John’s voice is small and quiet and breaks Jacob’s jaded heart. “I understand.”

“Good,” Jacob glances out at the sky and stands, dusting dirt off his jeans. “It’s time we head back.”

“We didn’t catch anything.”

“My Chosen’ll probably have some game to bring back. Bring the body, will ya?”

“Why do I have to do it?”

“Gotta explain your wet clothes somehow, Johnny.”

 

-

 

The two Chosen say nothing when Jacob flops Lucas’ corpse onto the truck bed, careful to keep it away from the two dead pronghorn already laid inside.

“Hit his head and drowned,” John explains with an easygoing _nothing to see here_ voice. He gestures to his wet clothes. “I found him and had to drag him out.”

The two Chosen continue their silence, ignoring John and looking to Jacob.

“He was Weak,” he says.

They nod simultaneously and Jacob starts the truck.

It’s a comfortable silence driving back to Joseph’s Compound.

 

-

 

The next day, Jacob catches Faith wandering alone by the dock. John is working on plans to retake the Valley, so Jacob is tasked to speak to their adopted sister himself. Trying to get Faith alone is hard work. Joseph’s Compound is small and bustling, at times it even feels a little suffocating with all the extra people from John, Jacob, and Faith.

He had hoped to stir up conversation with her when she came to his room to water the flowers, but today she didn’t. The death of Lucas was insignificant to most in the Compound, everyone now unmoved by something as common as dying. But his death rippled within Faith’s handful of Faithful who stayed with her at the Compound. She spent last night helping her followers bury him and soothed whoever grieved.

No one else really cared. No one bat an eye at John and Jacob’s “accident” story. People died. A lot more than before. It’s just the way things are.

Faith strolls in the grass near the shore, one dainty foot in front of the other. Jacob still has no idea how she can walk around barefoot all the time without a scratch or a speck of dirt. Not to mention the declining temperature. Jacob’s zipped his jacket all the way up and Faith is still barefoot in that short lace dress that probably does nothing to keep her warm. She doesn’t look concerned by the cold at all.

“Brother!” Faith smiles when she spots him. She waves him over. “Come pick wildflowers with me.”

“I’ll pass, Faith.” He puts his hands in his pockets, feeling the mild chill thaw out of them. “Y’didn’t water those flowers in my room today.”

“Oh,” her eyebrows knit together. “I—I was preoccupied with the grieving. I’m sorry, Jacob.”

“It’s fine. Though, I’d like a word with you.”

“Ask and I shall answer,” she says, brushing her fingertips across the tall grass.

He wished John was here with him. John always seemed to get along better with Faith. Jacob usually kept his distance—with Faith after Faith after Faith, it was hard for him to discern who was worth his time. Rachel, he thinks her name was, _this_ Faith seemed to do her job just fine, enough to earn Jacob’s slow-moving respect. Though he’s only recently began to try, sometimes he still finds it difficult to seriously speak to her and her fucking sing-song voice.

He shifts on his feet, attempting a casual posture. “You notice anything… strange, lately? Anything off-routine?”

“You’ve been a little different, if that’s what you mean,” she muses, smiling innocently at him. “Ever since you were brought back here half-dead.”

Jacob balks. “S’cuse me?”

“Something about you is… softer,” she frowns, searching for words. “Less… detached. Please don’t take that the wrong way, Brother. It’s not a _weakness_ , if that’s what you’re worried about. It’s just a change. It’s nice, though only when you’re not snapping at us.”

He glares at her. Why are his siblings so fucking keen on psychoanalyzing him?

“I meant about the Gate,” he says through gritted teeth. “Is there anything off about your most trusted Faithful? Or anyone else you left back in the Henbane?”

Faith stills, smile dropping from her face. “No, no, everything’s fine.”

“Doesn’t sound like it is,” Jacob presses, removing his hands from his pockets to cross his arms over his chest. “What do you know?”

“Nothing, nothing.” She shakes her head. “I don’t _know_. I follow the will of The Father, and I must do so unquestionably.”

“Faith. Are you hiding something?”

“No. No, Jacob.” She looks stricken, eyes wide as she clutches the flowers tightly in her hands. “Please Brother, I won’t say any more. I can’t say any more.”

She forces a smile back onto her face. The poster of Eden’s Gate kind of smile she always wears—but the mask is askew, the corners of her mouth twitch and twitch as she forces them up into what’s attempting to be a delighted grin. She holds up the bunch of flowers in her hand, purples and pinks.

“Aren’t these _beautiful?_ ” She asks, voice tooth-achingly sweet. She stretches the vowels of the word, _bee-yoooo-ti-full._

“Is Joseph hiding something?”

“ _Stop_.” The facade breaks for a moment, Jacob spotting fear through the cracks just before she builds it back up again. “We shouldn’t be talking like this.”

Jacob steps closer and Faith steps back. “Faith. This is important. Stop playing your fucking games and _talk._ ”

“It’s not a game!” She shakes her head, hair swishing at the sharp movements. “You don’t—you don’t know what he’ll _do_ if he finds out I—”

His voice is razor sharp. “ _Faith._ At least give me _something_ useful.”

She freezes at his tone, shoulders sagging. Then the mask goes back up, everything screaming _Faith Seed, The Siren,_ save for her quivering smile. She bunches up all the flowers in one hand, leaving her other free, and extends her hand out to him.

Jacob doesn’t take her hand, but approaches her, dropping his arms down to his sides. Faith reels him in with a tug of his jacket sleeve, close enough that she can lower her voice without him straining to hear.

He doesn’t say anything as she tucks wildflowers into his breast pocket, the array of bright colors springing out against the dark background his jacket provides.

“The Father has been overseeing some of the work in my region,” she whispers, her eyes betraying her smile. “It’s by his will I stay here to be with you and John, even while you’ve both recovered. I—I think I’m still in control but some of my Faithful are secretive about their communications with him.”

When she doesn’t continue, Jacob nods and begins to pull away. Faith grabs his sleeve with both hands, eyes wide. “You can’t question him about this. That’s _all_ he’ll let me know, but he cannot know I told you. You musn’t breathe a word of this, Brother, you _can’t_.”

“I won’t,” he promises with a nod, wrenching himself out of her grip. He walks away from her, heading back to the Compound.

“Do you like your daffodils?” Faith calls out, hesitant, just as he’s leaving.

He stops and turns slightly, looking at her over his shoulder. The bright yellow flowers in his room. It takes him a second for what she’s saying to click.

“Yes, Faith.” He answers softly. “They’re very nice.”

 

-

 

“Holy shit, are we glad to see you!” Nick says when he opens his front door, AR-CL lowering as soon as he realizes who’s come knocking to the Ryes’ door. Rook sees Kim behind him, baseball bat at the ready.

“Hey,” Rook smiles just as Nick yanks her in for a bone-crushing hug. While still hugging her, he steps back to pull her into the house and kicks the door shut. He spins around, Rook yelping.

“Look who it is!” He exclaims to Kim, she guesses. Rook can’t really see much with her face smushed into Nick, his sunglasses hanging on his shirt digging into her.

Kim drops the bat with a relieved, delighted laugh and pounces, sandwiching Rook into a tight hug between them. “Oh my god! Nobody even told us you were out!”

“Yeah, yeah, I missed you guys too,” Rook squeaks, starting to feel discomfort around the almost healed bullet wound in her abdomen. “But I also like breathing. And also I still have a few stitches so if you guys could—”

“Oh god, did we hurt you or—” Kim asks, shoving Nick away and drawing back from Rook herself.

Nick’s face falls, worry etched between his brows. “Sorry Dep, I didn’t even think—”

“It’s fine, guys. I’m all healed up,” Rook says, then grimaces and lifts her shirt up slightly to expose the remainder of her stitches. “Well, mostly healed up.”

“It’s crazy that you’re still alive,” Kim says, looking at the stitches with wide eyes.

“Like the goddamn terminator,” Nick nods, sniffling a bit.

“Damn, you gonna cry on me, Nick?” Rook teases, dropping the hem of her shirt over her wound and lightly punching him on the shoulder.

“He did all his crying when we thought you died in the explosion,” Kim grins, wrapping her arms around his waist.

“Oh, screw the two of ya,” Nick complains, but matches Kim’s grin with one of his own. “I had every right to cry. I was there when it happened.”

“I’m touched, truly touched.” Rook dramatically places a hand over her heart. Then she claps her hands together. “Anyway, as happy as I am to see you guys, I’ve got places to be and I dropped by to see my beautiful goddaughter. Where are you guys hiding her?”

Kim points upwards, starting towards the stairs. “Come on, I’ll take you to her.”

Rook’s never actually seen the baby room. It’s cozy with toys and unopened packets of diapers. The wall above the crib is painted with little airplanes against a sky blue background.

“Nick really wants her to fly one day, huh?” Rook chuckles, voice lower due to the quiet of the room.

“You know how he is,” Kim smirks, glancing at the painted wall. The two of them lean over the crib, soft smiles on their faces when they see the baby fast asleep.

“God, she’s so cute,” Rook coos quietly, making pinching motions with her fingers. “So _tiny_.”

Kim chuckles and places a hand on Rook’s arm, squeezing lightly, assuringly. Her voice is quiet and kind. “How are you, Dep? Really, I mean. Aside from your near-death experience you were trapped all alone in a dark, scary place for a long time. Do you need to talk about it?”

Rook’s smile wavers, a sharp ache in her chest. “I... Thanks, Kim. Really. I appreciate it, but honestly? I really don’t wanna talk about it. I’m sorry.”

Maybe if she tries her best to ignore the fact that she’s actually mourning goddamn Jacob Seed, she’ll forget about all of it.

“Okay,” Kim nods. “Just remember Nick and I are here if you need us. I shouldn’t have to say it, but you’re family.”

“I know. I’m just—maybe one day, okay? I don’t think I’m ready yet.”

“Alright then,” Kim says, dropping her arm and settling to lean on the wall by the crib, painted planes hovering over her. “You see anyone else yet? How long have you been out of bed rest?”

“Uh, yeah. Spoke with the Cougars and the Sheriff, since I was at the Jail the whole time. Stopped by Fall’s end before I got to you guys. Got lots of hugs there too, okay, actually all of the hugging was from Joey, but yeah,” Rook recalls. “Before coming to the Valley I actually stopped by the Wolf’s Den.”

Kim grimaces. “They say they’re sorry?”

Rook’s face twists into a _meh_ expression, head tilting. “Well… sorta? Eli and Tammy said they were sorry but I don’t think they meant it. I mean they _did_ , they looked really guilty, but I understood. It’s not every day you get to defeat your enemy, y’know? And I was just collateral. Wheaty even gave me this really awkward hug, though. And Staci…”

“Deputy Pratt, right?” Kim clarifies.

“Yeah,” she nods. “Staci was okay. Glad they got him out.”

Though Staci didn’t look too happy to be out when she had seen him. He had greeted her with a solemn nod and a quiet vowel of acknowledgement. She had asked him how he was doing, how he was holding up after all Jacob put him through.

“I don’t know, Rook,” he had said, voice so much gruffer than it used to be. “I—I feel like I actually _owe_ him something, y’know? That bastard broke me the way he did everyone else, but I came back stronger. I’m Strong, I had purpose. And now?”

“You feel lost.” She tried to put a hand on his shoulder, in some kind of solidarity for someone who somehow missed Jacob as well, but Staci flinched and yanked his shoulder away. “Staci… you’re okay. I get it.”

Staci had looked at her sharply then, face hard, eyes narrowed and analyzing. Then, he nodded. “You’re Strong. That’s good. Everyone here is Weak.”

Rook smiled at him sadly, she couldn’t even begin to imagine what Jacob had put him through the whole time he was stuck in the Veterans Center. But Jacob had made a heavy impact on him. So different from his impact on Rook, but in some fucked up kind of way they both missed him all the same.

Staci had never asked, never pushed—but the both of them had shared a quiet moment of mourning in the Wolf’s Den.

Rook sighs, shaking off the memory in her head. She meets Kim’s sympathetic eyes. “I don’t know if Staci will ever be the same, but yeah. He’s okay.”

“That’s good to hear,” Kim says followed by a grimace. “Well, the _okay_ part is good to hear, I mean.”

Rook exhales a quiet laugh just as Nick walks into the room, a glass of water in hand. “Sorry t’interrupt, but, I remembered everyone radioin’ when you were down in the Jail saying that you need to stay hydrated. Can’t have you drying up and dropping dead on us.”

Rook takes the glass Nick pushes at her, water sloshing, and makes a face. “You know that was when I was, like, _dying_ , right? I’m okay now, Nick.”

“Just, c’mon, drink up, Dep. Remember t’drink lots of water.” He shoots her puppy dog eyes. “Drink.”

Rook rolls her eyes and gulps down half the glass. She wipes her mouth on the backside of her hand and scoffs. “Look at those paternal instincts kicking in.”

Kim smiles at Nick, eyes teasing and endeared. “Don’t drown her.”

Nick puts his hands up in surrender, voice cracking up an octave. “Okay, okay. Just—shit, you worried us, Deputy.”

Rook grins and gives the baby one last look. Nick and Kim joining her in the silence as they all just stare down into the crib with soft eyes.

Then Rook clears her throat, handing her glass back to Nick. “I gotta go, you guys. I said I’d meet Jess in the Henbane soon.”

She hugs them both loosely and quietly exits the room. “Stay with the kid. I’ll let myself out. I’ll see you guys.”

As Rook closes the door, she hears Nick quietly complain _you didn’t finish your water!_ the same time Kim softly says goodbye.

 

-

 

Jess meets her in a little abandoned house in the woods north of 8-Bit Bar. Rook hops out of the beat-up car she plucked off some random road and sees Jess waiting on the porch. There’s an ATV parked closer to the woods than the house, she guesses that’s Jess’ ride.

“Hey.” Rook shoots her a small smile. “You wanted to talk?”

“Hey.” Jess tilts her head down in a hesitant nod. “Yeah, Dep.”

Rook joins her on the porch, under the shade. Jess shifts on her feet, antsy. There’s a duffel bag right at her feet, sagging on the floor like it’s barely filled. Rook rests her hand on the hilt of Jacob’s knife sheathed on her hip and leans against the porch railing, casual and relaxed.

“You… got something on your mind, Jess?”

Jess halts her anxious shifting and sucks in a deep breath, sighing out a heavy exhale as her shoulders loosen. She meets Rook’s eyes. “Yeah. I do.”

“You okay?”

“Open the bag.”

“Uh, what?”

Jess nudges the duffel bag on the ground between them with her boot. “Open it. It’s for you.”

Rook looks at Jess, confused, but gets down to unzip the duffel. When she peers down at its contents, her breath catches, whatever quip she was going to say dying in her throat. There’s only one thing in the duffel, and it’s Jacob’s red fucking rifle.

She looks up at Jess, eyes wide. Jess’ expression is cool, blank. She nods down at Rook. “Take it out.”

Rook gingerly extracts the rifle from the bag, clutching it in her hands as she stands back to full height. “How—how did you get this? Did you have this the whole time?”

“It was right next to you when I found you,” Jess says, eyes narrowing. “Guess the Peggies left it behind when they were carting Jacob away, huh?”

Rook freezes. She almost drops the rifle. “You said you didn’t see who they were taking away.”

“I did.” Jess crosses her arms. “I waited for _you_ to say who you were with, but you never did. So now, I’ll give you back this fancy gun, and you can tell me just what the fuck is going on. The fucking truth, Dep.”

Rook tightens her grip around the rifle, knuckles blanching white. She chews on the inside of her cheek. _Fuck_. _Just fuck. What the fuck do I say?_

Jess’ voice is harsh, “ _Dep_.”

“Fuck. He—yeah, okay, I lied,” Rook admits, setting the rifle down to lean on the rail. She props her elbows on the wooden railing, looking away from Jess and facing the narrow dirt road before dropping her head, staring at the ground. “I’m sorry I lied. I guess… everyone already thought Jacob was dead so I didn’t think there was a point to hashing that up again, especially when he’s actually dead this time.”

“That’s a shitty fucking thing to do,” Jess says, resting her hip against the rail. “You should have told us, at least. You know. Your _friends_.”

“I know, I know! I just… God, I just didn’t wanna think about it, okay? And then if I told you guys you’d ask questions and I just—it’s better if I just forget about all of it. I’m _trying_ to forget about all of it.”

Jess leans close, trying to catch Rook’s eyes. She looks up and watches a fury flash in Jess’ eyes. “Did he hurt you?”

“No! No!” Rook defends. She pushes off the rail and crosses her arms, feeling small. “Nothing like that happened. It was—actually—I, uh, we…”

Rook trails off, unable to look Jess in the eye. It’s quiet for a breath, Rook squirms under Jess’ assessing gaze, scrutinizing and smoldering her at the same time.

“Fuck,” Jess breathes in disbelief. “ _Fuck_. Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Jess—”

“ _He’s_ why you’ve been fucking moping the last few weeks? _Jacob fucking Seed?_ ”

“I know! I know it looks bad, Jess, trust me, I know—”

“ _Do you?_ ” Jess snaps, pointing an accusing finger. “Do you _really?_ He’s killed innocents, he’s destroyed people, brainwashed them and turned them into his obedient little fuckwad army. He fucking kidnapped your deputy friend and twisted his head inside out to the point where he spews Jacob’s darwinian crap whenever anyone talks to him!”

“I _know_.” Rook bites her tongue, feeling tears stinging her eyes. “Jess, please—”

“He hunted people!” Jess rails on, eyes dark and glittering with anger, _betrayal_. “He—He’s one of the biggest fucking assholes in Hope County and you couldn’t fucking keep it in your pants?”

“That didn’t happen—” Rook’s voice trembles as shakes her head frantically. “It—we didn’t—it wasn’t like that. It was different, I think.”

She winces. Why does that sound even worse?

“You had fucking _feelings_ for him, huh?” Jess balls up her fists. “He’s responsible for the death of my family, Dep. It was his people that fucking murdered my parents in the _worst_ way.”

“I—I know. Fuck. Jess, I’m so sorry.” Rook reaches for Jess only for her to flinch away, it fucking _hurts_ to know she’s betrayed her friend like this. “There’s no excuse. I fucked up, Jess, but he’s dead. It’s over.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Jess mutters, leaping over the rail and heading towards her ATV. “There’s no fuckin’ excuse.”

“Wait, wait!” Rook scrambles off the porch while the engine of the ATV purrs to life. _Fuck._ “Jess, can you just—”

“I got shit to kill,” Jess snaps, looking away from her. The ATV speeds down the narrow road, leaving Rook in the dust.

She watches Jess disappear around the bend, and wipes her face on her arm. Of course, she’s fucking crying. When the ATV’s engine fades into a distant sound, she trudges back to the porch to pick up Jacob’s rifle and heads back to her car.

The door creaks miserably as she tosses the rifle onto the passenger seat with the rest of her shit. She gets inside, slumping against the driver’s seat after she slams the door shut.

Rook wipes her face again, then exhales a shuddering sigh and leans down to rests her heavy head on the steering wheel.

 

-

 

“Glad you were able to track down Feeney, Deputy,” Virgil’s jolly voice crackles through her radio. “He’s key to Faith’s Bliss operations.”

“You’re _sure_ he’s the one in charge of the Bliss?” She replies, looking at the Feeney Residence in her binoculars.

Grace nudges her with an elbow, “Dep, over there.”

A truck of three Peggies pulls up into the residence. Counting them and the Peggies already on guard in the area makes seven. Piece of cake. She gives Grace a nod.

“He’s not only one of the lead chemists, but he seems to be part of distribution as well,” Virgil says. “I don’t know exactly what you’re looking for Deputy, but he’s the one who personally handles the Bliss—aside from Faith, I mean. Though nobody’s seen her in a while.”

“Thanks, Virgil. Over and out.” Rook puts her radio away.

Rook hasn’t told anyone outside of her circle of friends about the mercenaries. Nobody in the Resistance is probably in on it, but people talk and she’d much rather be one step ahead of things. Hell, the fact that she’s even alive and breathing is still a need-to-know thing, though she gives it another week before it’s general knowledge she’s kicking.

“You sure you’re up for this?” Grace asks her, frowning slightly. “I know it’s not a hard job, but…”

Rook knows. The puffy redness of her eyes. She still looks like she’s been crying. It’s been a couple hours since the argument with Jess.

“I’m okay, Grace,” she says with a small smile. They’re both too heavily armed to hug properly at the moment so Rook settles for bumping their arms together. “Come on, we’re gonna get answers outta this guy.”

They eliminate the seven Peggies fairly quickly—Rook slipping up twice with her close range attacks but Grace cleans up after her with bullets cleanly burying themselves in skulls. Rook winces at the small strain on her stitches.

“You good?” Grace asks her once she catches up with Rook from her vantage point.

“Yeah.” Rook ghosts a hand over her stomach. “Just sore, but I’m good.”

Grace peers at her from under her hat, her soft voice skeptical. “Don’t push yourself.”

Rook makes a _pssh_ sound and rolls her eyes, unsheathing Jacob’s knife and pushing through the front door. It’s empty inside, just furniture and other household crap littered about the place. The bedrooms and bathrooms are empty as well.

“Looks like nobody’s home,” she says.

“There’s a bunker trapdoor out back.” Grace stands by the window, squinting as late afternoon sunlight spills onto her face as she looks out.

“Then down we go.”

The exit the house, and when Rook moves to haul open the trapdoor Grace steps forward to stop her.

Rook wraps her hands around the handle and narrows her eyes at her. “Grace. I’m not made of glass.”

“I know,” Grace sighs and steps back.

Rook nods petulantly. “Thank you.”

She yanks on the handle, grunting over the weight of the door. The metal hinges groan at the turn. Rook lets go of the door and places a foot on the first rung of the ladder. She looks up at Grace, who makes no move towards the bunker.

“I’ll keep watch up here,” Grace answers her questioning look, raising her sniper rifle in gesture.

“See you soon,” Rook says and steps off the ladder rung to slide down into the bunker.

Immediately she feels the shift—out of the sun and down into the stale air of a bunker. She holds Jacob’s knife in her hand, grip going tighter when she hears the faint rustling and footsteps of another person. Down the linear structure of the bunker, she sees someone standing by the bathroom at the very end.

Shirtless and tattooed with a wild, nest-like mane of dark hair. She can see traces of Bliss visibly wafting off him, she bets if he turns around she’ll see the thin white sheen of Blissed-over eyes.

Prowling down the bunker, keeping low so he doesn’t see her in the bathroom mirror, she glances at a note on the bunker bed. Her eyes glaze over the text and it’s all the confirmation she needs that this man is Feeney. God, she hopes this guy is coherent enough to talk.

If he is, he isn’t going to talk willingly. Rook pauses for a moment, then sheathes the knife, deciding to carry her silenced handgun instead.

She holds the gun steady, pointing it straight at him, then stands to full height and clears her throat.

The sound makes Feeney jump, whirling around with a baseball bat in his hands. She looks at his eyes. _Yup, definitely hopped up on a lot of Bliss_. He snarls at her and starts to charge, raising the bat. Rook squeezes the trigger and hears the silenced _pssst_ of the bullet before it embeds itself into his thigh.

Feeney stumbles and hits the ground hard, baseball bat falling out of his hands and rolling on the bunker floor. An agonized wail escapes his lips as he whimpers around his injured leg, the smell of copper now strong in the filtered air.

Rook steadily approaches him, keeping her gun on him. “Tell me what I need to know and it’ll be over quickly.”

“You… you can’t stop the Bliss,” he seethes at her through clenched teeth. She blinks back and wrinkles her nose. She can smell his breath from here. _What is it with cultists and no care for basic hygiene?_

“Yeah, yeah, heard it all before,” she says. “I want to know about Fischer. Come on, you can tell me. Do you know a Fischer?”

She catches something like recognition on his face before he snarls again at tries to lash out at her with a bloodstained hand. She steps back and the offending hand falls short, hitting the floor and smearing bloody prints on it.

“Come on,” she rolls her eyes. She brings her boot down on the hand covering his wound, feeling the fingers clench and squirm under the pressure, watching the burst of pain on Feeney’s features as he cries out. She focuses on keeping the unimpressed expression on her face while she fights the uneasiness in the back of her head. _Torturing people now? There’s a first time for everything._ “It’s your choice, Feeney. I know who you are, and I know you know things. Now you can play nice and I’ll let you go with a bullet in your head… or you can keep your mouth shut and slowly bleed out instead.”

She presses her boot down harder, watching blood leak out of his leg faster.

“Yes—yes, I know… I know Fischer,” Feeney stammers out, his voice choked. “I—had orders to give him Bliss. To give his men safe passage out of Hope C—County. Some—Someone killed him—”

His teary, Blissed eyes widen at Rook. She waves with her free hand. “Yeah, that was me. Keep talking. Who gave the orders? Who told you to work with him? Was it Faith?” 

Feeney stammers incoherently, eyes drooping. Rook dives down to slap him in the face. When he jolts back into consciousness she pulls away again and wipes the sweat from his face off her hand onto her jeans.

“ _Who_ is in charge of all this? Is Faith the rat? Is she the one stealing from you cult fuckers and selling off the Bliss?”

“The—Th—No! I can’t… I—I can’t…”

She lifts her boot off his wounded thigh and stomps down on it again. “You _can_.”

“It’s—It’s not Faith… he… he told me I can never t—tell anyone,” he squeezes his Blissed eyes shut, breathing erratically through the pain. “Sh-she doesn’t know. It—it is what _he_ a—a—asked of me—”

“ _Who?_ ” Rook’s eyes widen. Even when she asks, she already knows what he’s going to say.

“ _The Father_.”

“Why? Why would he do this?” Jacob didn’t even know. Apparently, Faith doesn’t know either. Why keep it a secret from his family? What the fuck is Joseph’s plan?

“C— _countermeasures_ … th—that’s all I know… _please_ …” Feeney trails off, staring at the barrel of Rook’s gun.

He’s out of answers. Rook sighs. _Fuck_ , okay, at least she has a name. Joseph fucking Seed himself. Though she feels like she has more questions than she started with now.

“Thanks.” She looks down at Feeney one last time and shoots him in the head, the silenced shot whispering through the air. The whimpering finally stops.

When she exits the bunker, she spots an opened bottle of whiskey resting on a table. She must have missed it earlier. She takes a swig of it, cherishing the warmth of it down her throat and taking the tiniest load off her nerves, then starts up the ladder.

“Got what you wanted?” Grace asks once Rook’s out, a bored tone to her voice. “It was quiet out here, not a single Peggie in sight.”

“Yeah,” Rook sighs. “I think. I just need, well, _more_ answers now.”

“What’s the plan?”

“Well, I don’t wanna start a big gunfight before I get what I want. We might accidentally kill someone who knows something, yeah?” Rook says. Grace nods, then she continues. “Yeah. So I might have to do this part alone. Should be fine. I’ll just be in and out.”

Grace looks at her darkly, grip tightening on her gun. “That’s what you said last time. In the Whitetails.”

Rook shrugs sheepishly. “But I won’t _be_ in the Whitetails.”

“Just where exactly are you going, Deputy?”

“I think I can find answers in Joseph’s Compound.”

“No.”

“Grace—”

“ _No._ ”

“I’ll just be in and out!” Rook exclaims, throwing her hands in the air, exasperated. “I’m not going to fake die every time you guys let me out of your sight! That was a one-time thing. That wasn’t even on me. That wasn’t even on the Peggies. That was on _our_ people. And no fucking way would the Whitetails mess with Joseph’s island while they’re still trying to help out in the Henbane _and_ maintain control of the Mountains.”

Grace looks at her for a long moment, then sighs. “The others won’t be happy about this.”

Rook winces when she thinks of Jess. She puts a comforting hand on Grace’s shoulder. “I’ll be fine. No caves for people to blow up and crush me under on that island.”

“Then _you_ have to be the one to tell everyone about this. Especially Nick.” Grace rolls her eyes and sighs. “I can’t see that guy cry again.”

Rook leans on Grace’s shoulder and laughs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... this got really long, but things are gonna start moving again next chapter i promise
> 
> also it's 3am so i hope there aren't too many mistakes, though i did proofread it twice but you never know! i'll probably read this in the morning and fix whatever mistakes escaped me before


	10. Chapter 10

Rook is ready to be fucking done with this. For weeks this has bothered her, having nothing else to think about while confined to bed rest, staring up at the ceiling and trying to connect the dots. She did her best to not think about Jacob, lock him away in the cold dark corner of her thoughts to never see the light of day, but it was difficult when his memory is so intertwined with the mercenary camp she analyzes over and over again.

She wishes she hadn’t burned it all to the ground. Sure, it was great to take out all of the Bliss, but if she had taken her time, maybe she would have more answers. Fischer and Feeney were only middlemen. Joseph Seed was the head of the snake, something she probably could have discovered long ago had she searched the merc camp thoroughly. Who was on the receiving end of the Bliss? Who was Fischer’s employer? Do they seek to weaponize the Bliss? _Why_ would Joseph Seed be secretly exporting Bliss to outside buyers? What does he gain, since the Seeds definitely aren’t in need of piles and piles of money?

All questions she could have had an easier time digging up had she not been thinking of destroying the Bliss—had she not been thinking of Jacob, Jacob, Jacob.

Rook reaches Joseph’s Compound in the late morning, stopping her jet ski on the edge of the island, a good distance away from the docks she saw when she zoomed past. She kills the engine and scans the area, peeking over flora. She’s alone. Good. Hopefully she’ll be able to get back to her jet ski before anyone sees it.

“Hey, kid.” Dutch's voice crackles from her radio. “Heard you were going back into the belly of the beast. Don't worry, I ain't gonna try to stop ya or anything. Just… be careful, alright? Hope County just got you back.”

“Thanks, Dutch. I'll be okay.”

“Just remember you don't have to do everything by yourself. You got friends who'll come as soon as you call.”

“I know, I know.” Rook rolls her eyes. “Listen, I'm on the island. It's gonna be radio silence from me for a while.”

“I'll let you go, then. Watch yourself out there, Dep.”

She clips her radio back onto her belt.

It would be safer to approach through the docks, rather than going around to the front. The docks are most likely to have less guards.

Rook checks herself before she gets moving, inspecting the small arsenal of weapons on her person. Some throwing knives, smoke bombs, her silenced handgun, her silenced rifle, Jacob’s rifle ( _which she honestly doesn’t need but feels better if it’s with her)_ , and Jacob’s knife. _Just in case_. She’s not here to kill anyone, she’s here for answers. Even if she did want to go on stealthy—killing whoever’s in her way—someone’s likely to notice missing people.

She has to keep this under wraps before she gets all her answers. One shake up and Joseph and whoever else is in on this could get paranoid.

She’s gonna have to be very, very careful. And quiet. And fucking invisible.

There are two Peggies by the docks, one of them standing armed and ready while the other is sitting on the dock with a fishing line thrown over the water. She’s just out of earshot, but they seem to be quietly chatting. Hopefully they stay invested in their conversation long enough for Rook to move through the brush and slip in through the unwatched gates.

Through the fence, she sees little white cabins scattered around the compound. Some have words painted on them— _luxuria, avaritia, acedia, gula, invidia_ , the Peggies certainly know how to keep up a theme. She spots a couple unnamed cabins near the church where all this shit began. Her surveying’s cut short by a Peggie approaching, walking the perimeter of the fence. She stills in her place in the bushes, way too close that he just might notice her. _Don’t see me don’t see me don’t see me don’t see me._

He’s humming one of the cult songs, tapping on his gun to the beat as he passes by her, completely unaware of her existence.

Rook closes her eyes for a moment, grateful for the bushes and her dumb fucking luck.

She creeps in through the ornate white gates and stays close the perimeter, using crates and cabins as cover. The heart of the small compound is bustling with Peggies—sorting weapons, tending to Bliss flowers, training—a community right in Joseph Seed’s backyard.

Rook weaves past cabins, ducked down by whatever can obscure her as she sneaks around. Getting closer to the church, she’s hiding right outside the cabins with no sins painted on them. A group of Peggies have Rook scrambling up the roof of the cabin, no other place to hide but up as they walk briskly past the cabin.

“Get ready for heavy lifting,” one Peggie says, all business. “A cargo truck of weapons and Bliss just came in from the Henbane, we’ve been tasked to carry them out and take inventory…”

He continues his briefing, voice growing distant as the Peggies walk away, but Rook’s stopped paying attention. A familiar fucking face stands by the Bliss garden, speaking to some of the Peggies there.

In all his designer coat glory, stands John Seed in perfect health.

“You gotta be kidding me,” she mutters.

Fuck, she didn’t even think of the possibility of seeing him here. The last she saw him he was bleeding out and retreating with armored trucks, but she didn’t consider he’d actually _stay_ on Joseph’s island. _Where else would he go? He definitely can’t go back to the Valley_. God should she—should she try to kill him, finish the job?

Rook shakes her head. She won’t lose track of her goal. She isn’t even here to kill Joseph. Rook climbs off the roof and continues sneaking, hoping that smirking bastard doesn’t spot her while she’s here.

Peeking through the windows, she can see that the unnamed cabins are a little better than the others. Maybe this is where those higher up in the cult hierarchy stay? Her hunch is proven correct when she passes by a cabin that is _so_ clearly John Seed’s.

After a moment of consideration, she sneaks into John’s cabin through the window, draping the curtains over the open window to conceal herself the best she can while still having an exit.

The cabin is only one room, a mixed living and bedspace. The furniture looks basic, but the sheets look softer and fancier than the others she’s seen, and there’s a row of expensive shoes lined up by the door. On the desk are papers of inventory and confession notes, as well as three pairs of sunglasses. Above the desk is one of the big _YES_ posters she’s seen scattered around the Valley. There’s an array of hair products in the bathroom. A full length mirror stands near the door. When she opens his wardrobe she sees hangers of well-made shirts and waistcoats.

Rook doesn’t see anything suspicious relating to the secret Bliss exports, but if she’s being honest with herself she’s not even looking for that in here. She’s rifling through his things out of pettiness. She relishes the fact that she kicked him out of his big fancy ranch and now he’s stuck in a modest cabin.

 _I should move all his stuff two inches to the left, just to throw him off when he comes back in here._ Rook pauses by the window, considering it for a moment. Ultimately concluding that it’ll take too much time and might make some noise when she pushes the heavier pieces of furniture, she begrudgingly leaves John’s cabin untouched.

Rook decides she’ll keep searching the unnamed cabins. If more important cult members are staying in them, she’s bound to find something.

The next empty cabin is bare, especially compared to the inside of John’s cabin. The same kind of furniture is strewn about—a bed, a desk, a wardrobe, a door to the bathroom in the exact same place it was in John’s cabin.

Whoever stays here lives with only the essentials, the lack of possessions aside from clothes being pretty spartan. The only thing that really stands out is four little flower pots lined up on the windowsill, daffodils beaming a warm, happy yellow to the dark room.

There’s a map on the desk. A map of the Whitetail Mountains, marked up with red and black ink. Rook leans over it, looking at the areas marked. Whoever stays here is cooking up a plan to take back the region, and this person has most likely taken Jacob’s place as Herald.

There’s a sound outside. Rook freezes. Someone humming, dangerously close to the door. _Shit._ Rook flees from the desk to make for the window, but the door starts to open and Rook has no choice but to hide next to the wardrobe, its width will block her from view so long as whoever it is doesn’t head towards the bed.

_Shit shit shit._

Light spills into the room as the door opens with a creak. A woman is humming, a smooth alto running over the notes of _Oh The Bliss_ , Rook recognizing the melody from the times she’s guiltily tapped her foot along to cult radio in her car. Just when Rook realizes she might not only recognize the song, but the voice as well, Faith Seed tiptoes into her line of sight.

Rook presses herself against the wall, hers and Jacob’s rifles digging into her back. Faith, watering can in hand, walks barefoot to the windowsill on the other side of the room, facing away from Rook. _Thank God._ Faith continues humming as she lifts the watering can and waters the daffodils, half of her in Rook’s vision and the other half of her cut off by the wooden wardrobe’s edge.

John is here. Faith is here. All the remaining Seeds are together on Joseph’s little island and Rook begins to think she should just throw out her original plan and start killing everyone. If she kills Faith now, she can snipe John from the roof of this cabin, and then Joseph? No, she’d have to find him first, or lure him out. If she plans to kill them she needs to take them all out together and quickly before they even know what’s going on. Rook would probably never get out of this island alive if she did this, but it would be worth it, wouldn’t it?

But she had promised her friends that she’ll come back from this island in one piece. Yeah, Rook’s gonna hang onto that thought and use it as an excuse for not ridding the County of the Seeds in one big act of self-sacrifice. It sounded too easy in her head anyway, too simple, meaning that it would probably go horribly wrong.

Faith stops her humming, startling slightly. For a dreadful second Rook thinks she’s seen her, but Faith still hasn’t turned around.

“Oh! Brother, you scared me,” Faith giggles, turning to look in the direction of the door, beyond where Rook can see. _Ah shit, now John’s here too._

“The hell did I tell you about wandering around in my shit behind my back?” A low voice drawls from the doorway.

Rook’s eyes go wide, biting down hard on her tongue to stop herself from making any noise. She’s gonna fucking faint.

That’s not John. That’s not Joseph, either. Maybe she’s just hearing things. With how much that voice besets the recesses of her head she could so easily be projecting her own heartache onto whoever it is at the door.

“I was just watering your flowers,” Faith’s says sweetly, a hint of mischief gracing her profile.

“And now you’re done.” The voice that is so much like Jacob's has Rook restless, she wants to scratch at the side of wardrobe to stop herself from leaning out to see him, to see that he’s not a fucking ghost. “Out. C’mon, Faith.”

“You should really open the curtains for the flowers.”

“I’ll do that later, get out.”

“You’re grumpier than usual,” Faith pouts, but leaves the windowsill and disappears past the damn wardrobe edge barring Rook’s vision.

“I talked to Joseph.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“If you need to… process,” Faith pauses, her voice void of her musical, playful tone from earlier. “I’ll leave you be.”

Rook hears the sound of a door closing softly, sunlight slipping out of the room. It’s quiet, nothing moves. Rook thinks she’s alone now, but then there’s a heavy sigh. _Jacob’s_ heavy sigh. Then soft footsteps.

A familiar head of red hair walks into view, Rook’s nails biting into her palms as she watches him poke at the daffodils with a scoff. He’s wearing a different jacket from when she saw him last. Makes sense, since the other one was totally ruined. It still has the cult’s symbol on the sleeves, but it’s now a heather grey instead of the previous military green.

He hasn’t seen her yet, his back still turned towards her, but his posture tenses suddenly. The gut feeling he’s being watched.

Rook steps forward, feet moving out of their own volition, boots softly scuffing the floor, heart jackrabbiting in her chest, and quietly says, “Those are beautiful flowers.”

Jacob goes still, like he’s been turned to stone. Rook tentatively takes another step closer, now _just_ out of his reach. Her breath catches as she studies him, squinting at the edges, the folds of his jacket, the dirt on his boots, the tuft of red hair at the top of his head. Standing tall and breathing and so very, very alive. His hand trembles slightly before he clenches it into a white-knuckled fist and she hears him exhale in a shaky staccato, a ragged and tortured sound. He turns around slowly, cautiously, pale eyes catching onto the hesitant look on her face and dragging down down down until they snap up to meet her own.

“You’re alive,” Rook breathes, feeling lightheaded with the fact.

Jacob’s face is blank, unreadable, but there’s a wild look to his eyes, unblinking and burning through her. He takes two steps towards her until he’s right in her space, a hairsbreadth away. Rook doesn’t back away, doesn’t waver when he’s suddenly right in front of her. His eyes drift over her shoulder, brows furrowing minutely.

He’s noticed his rifle hanging on her back, she realizes.

“My friends picked it up when they found me on the road,” she murmurs, eyes still searching his face. The air between them feels too thick to breathe.

Jacob just stares at her with haunted eyes, the dark circles around his eyes suddenly looking so much heavier. He raises a hand to stop right by her jaw, as if he was about to touch her but something was holding him back.

“You gonna say something? Anything?” Rook catches his raised hand with her own and leans in, gently pressing her face into his open palm.

He flinches, breath hitching and eyes going wide at the contact, at the fact that she’s _here_. His other hand rises up to cradle her face, leaning down to press his forehead on top of hers. The familiar pressure of his rough skin has her shivering at the touch.

“Thought you were dead, they said you were _dead_.” He rasps, sounding worn and weary. “He kept goin’ on about how he killed you.”

“He—who?” Rook asks lamely, sighing into his touch and bunching his jacket in her fists.

“Doesn’t matter now.”

Rook has about a million questions she wants to ask, but the words die in her throat when Jacob leans down and presses his lips onto her own. Rook melts into him, hooking an arm around his neck and pulling him closer into a slow, open-mouthed kiss.

Jacob crowds into her with a groan, guiding her backwards until she bumps into the wall, the guns on her back clunking against the solid surface an digging uncomfortably into her. He breaks away to slide the guns off her shoulder and remove his own handgun from his holster. Rook follows in suit, removing all of her weapons, dropping them all to the floor.

Rook’s head clears for a moment, some logical part of her head screaming at her to _go_. She came here to get information, not to— _this_. Forgetting everything completely and trying to get as close as she can to Jacob, curtains closed inside this dark cabin, where she can still hear the faint bustling of Peggies outside. God, there are Peggies everywhere—she’s in Joseph’s goddamn Compound and she’s gone completely off tangent.

Dropping her throwing knives to the ground, she keens and bares her throat when he runs his hands around the base of her neck.

“How?” Jacob asks, his beard tickling her throat as he drags his lips across the skin. “ _How?"_

Rook moans and pulls at his hair. _How?_ Is a question she wants to ask as well. He shouldn’t be alive and yet he’s here. She shouldn’t be alive and yet she’s here.

Rook is fucking dizzy with it.

“Was pretty much a corpse when they found me,” she says softly, extracting one of Jacob’s burning hands from her neck and brings it down to hike up her shirt, lightly pressing his palm over the remnants of her stitches. There’s a dull throb of pain when his hand presses the area, but it’s mild enough for her to tune it out. Background noise.

“Does it hurt?” He whispers, his hand skirting up, hot on her skin and circling around to her back.

“A little.” She places the flat of her hand on his ribcage. “You?”

“A little,” he parrots, dog tags swinging as he pulls away to shuck off his jacket. He jerks his chin at her, eyes hooded. “Take it off.”

He doesn’t need to tell her twice, she’s shucking her jacket off, tossing it to the ground. Jacob’s on her before her jacket even hits the floor, strong hands gripping the back of her thighs and yanking her up. She hooks her legs around him as he slams the two of them against the wall, making Rook wince.

Jacob tenses at her expression. “Shit, did I—”

“No, no,” she says, eyes darting towards the curtained windows. “It’s just—that was a little loud. Could anyone have heard that?”

“Ah, shit,” he growls, shutting his eyes in exasperation and leans into her face, noses bumping. “This compound is so fuckin’ small.”

“I mean,” she bucks her hips into his, grinning when he bites his lip and stifles a groan, “we just have to be quieter.”

Jacob pulls them both away from the wall and throws Rook down onto the bed, crawling on top of her. The mournful expression on his face before is gone, replaced by hungry, hungry eyes. His lips curl into an off-kilter smirk, canines biting into his bottom lip. “Y’think you’ll manage to do that, Deputy? Think you’ll be able to keep your mouth shut when I touch you?”

 _Fuck._ His words go right down to her cunt, throbbing hotly between her thighs. Rook manages to not stumble over her words, raising a brow and looking as casual as she can despite the blush she can feel burning into her skin. “I think you should worry about yourself. You Seeds _love_ the sound of your own voice.”

He chuckles quietly, the sound rumbling in his chest. “You expecting a fuckin’ lecture?”

“Depends. You got a presentation ready? Should I go looking for a projector?”

Fucking _flirting_. All of this is overwhelming—one moment Jacob's dead in her world and the next he's ( _mostly_ ) hale and hearty and wearing _too many clothes._ Rook should be feeling guilty, she _knows_ she should feel guilty, that the world just got a little more complicated again, but she can't. She thinks of Jess, Staci, and everyone else he's hurt and killed. But there's Jacob looming above her, looking at her like _that_ and just the sight of him bars away any feeling of consequence—the only thing she wants to feel is him.

Jacob kicks off his boots off in careless motion, socks flying off soon after. She hears the boots tumble to the floor as his scarred hands trail down her denim-clad legs to yank off her boots as well. She bites back a laugh when he gets frustrated with her left boot, the damn thing just won’t come off.

“Need a hand with that?” Rook grins madly, but does nothing to help, watching him fight her stubborn boot. The damn thing finally comes off, and with a growl Jacob spitefully tosses it over his shoulder, she watches it fly across the room and hit the door with a thud.

They should really try to be quieter.

While Jacob peels off her socks, Rook leans up and starts pawing at his shirt, planting kisses on the flushed skin of his neck as she tugs at the hem. Jacob keens, pressing closer when she nips at the hollow of his throat, grinding his hardening dick into her. Too many fucking _clothes_.

 _“Brother Jacob?”_ Comes a muffled voice outside followed by two knocks on the door. Both of them freeze, Jacob almost snarls but manages to collect himself with a _fucking christ_ hissed under his breath. He looks away from Rook, scowling towards the door.

“What the _fuck_ do you _want?"_

There’s a brief pause, the Peggie outside probably taking in the hostile tone of Jacob’s voice. “Brother John would like to speak with you, sir.”

“You tell _my brother_ I’ll find him later,” Jacob barks. Rook traces the outline of his erection in his jeans, making him inhale sharply and fist a hand in her hair. He snarls at the door. “ _Bother me again and I’ll fucking kill you._ ”

“Creative,” Rook snorts.

Another pause. A faint _y-yes sir_ and footsteps shuffling away.

“That sounded important,” Rook says, palming at his crotch. His head turns away from the door, blown out eyes snapping back to her, focusing on her kiss-swollen lips.

Jacob dips down and pulls her into another kiss, tongue pushing into her mouth like he wants to live there, steady hands unbuttoning her flannel. She ruts her hips against him, feeling his cock twitch as he presses against her, warranting a sound from Jacob caught between a growl and a groan as he shoves his tongue deeper into her mouth, teeth clicking against hers. She sucks on his tongue, both of them moaning quiet and needy sounds, then bites on his lip as she unbuttons her shirt from the bottom to speed up the process.

Jacob peels off her shirt, urging her arms out of the sleeves and tossing it aside. He pushes her down onto the bed, Rook watching with hungry eyes as he pulls away again, kneeling above her, one knee between her legs, his jeans tented.

There’s a dark look in his eyes when he gazes at her torso, eyes burning into each stitch on her abdomen and shoulder. He runs his hands along her stomach, dipping down to press wet kisses on the skin near the stitches, rubbing his knee between her thighs. She whines, grinding into his knee. His voice low and breathy, beard tickling her belly. “Strong. So fuckin’ _Strong_. Two bullets and y’still wouldn’t quit.”

The praise fills Rook’s veins with a sweet warmth, she shivers at the words. Still lying back on the bed, breathing heavy, Rook tugs at his shirt. “Take it off. I wanna see you.”

Jacob glances at her, a moment of hesitance, and she tugs again, holding his gaze and licking her lips. “I show you mine, you show me yours.”

He hunches his shoulders slightly, pliant, and Rook watches the muscles move under his scarred and freckled skin when he lifts his arms for her to slide the shirt over his head. He leans down after she’s discarded his shirt, ready to kiss her again but she halts him with two hands pressed on his shoulders.

Jacob draws back, jaw set, no longer meeting her eyes. He tries to move away, but she keeps her hold on his shoulders. Rook knows he can easily break out of her grip, but he stays, looking somewhere off the side.

“Don’t know what you’re expecting,” he says quietly.

“I’m not expecting anything, Jacob.” She looks at him, really _looks_ at him—at the mess of his torso, scarred all around but looking so much better now without the blood curdling array of bruises she remembers on his body. She runs a hand down across the terrain of his chest, brushing past patches of red fuzz and dog tags, tracing scars. She feels him shudder under her touch. Her hand drifts up to the fresh scar by his shoulder, the one she had stitched up herself.

Rook leans up and presses her lips on the scar, dragging her mouth and tongue across his skin, over each freckle till she’s back to kissing his neck, then with her fingers tangling in his beard she guides his lips back to hers.

That seems to drag Jacob out of his head, out of his moment of abrasion. He spurs back into action, kissing her fervently, greedily, drinking in as much of her as he can. His hands circle her waist, raising her a couple inches off the bed for his other hand to unhook her bra, sliding the straps off her shoulders. Rook bites back a moan, covering her mouth with her hand when his mouth is on her breast. Her offhand grips at the sheets, then tangles in his hair. He pinches her nipple, rolling his thumb over the swelling bud while he uses his tongue to toy with the other.

For some fucking reason, Jacob stops sucking at her, a wolfish grin spreading on his face when he sees her covering her mouth. “You really think that’s gonna work?”

She lifts her hand away from her mouth to hiss at him. “Well, I can at least fucking _try_ not to alert everyone in the area, asshole.”

He chuckles softly and kisses her chest, the skin right between her breasts. His mouth travels down, teeth scraping the skin right above her belly button while he unbuttons her jeans, yanking them down. When he pulls them down to her knees, Rook quickly kicks them off.

“Want me that bad, huh?” Jacob asks, hushed and amused. “You miss me?”

Rook looks at him, the scars mottling his face. There’s a light scar on his temple where she remembers a bleeding cut before. The pale blue of his irises are thin circles around the black holes of his blown up pupils, staring down at her with desire and fascination.

“For _weeks_ I thought you were dead,” Rook whispers, sounding miserable. “What the _fuck_ do you think?”

Jacob leaves her abdomen and goes right back to her mouth, kissing her hard. She moans into his mouth, carding her fingers through his hair, tugging and rocking her hips when she hears him unzipping his jeans.

“Thought about you,” he says against her lips, one of his hands relentlessly teasing her nipple, “every damn day. Couldn’t get you out of my fuckin’ head.”

He kicks his jeans onto the ground. Rook feels something wet drag across her bare thigh and looks down to see wiry red hair and his cockhead leaking precum onto her. She reaches down and wraps her hand around him, sliding down from base to tip. _God, he’s pretty big._

Jacob groans, perhaps a little too loud, into her mouth, bucking his hips into her hand. She pulls him back by his hair.

“Be a little louder and someone’s gonna come knocking on your door,” she breathes, bare chest heaving, her hand still moving up and down. She swipes her thumb over his slit, garnering a sharp inhale from him.

He buries his face in her neck, teeth scraping and erratic breaths tickling her as he chuckles. His calloused hand abandons her breast and bats her hand away from his cock. Then her wet underwear’s pulled down, stopping mid-thigh. “Fuck, look at you. So wet for me.”

Rook grabs Jacob’s wrist, suddenly coming to her senses. “Wait, wait, wait. Do—do you have protection?”

Jacob looks up from her neck, raising a cynical brow. “You lost, Deputy?”

 _Of course. Joseph’s Compound. The cult is supposed to practice celibacy._ Rook sighs and thumps her head back into the pillow. “Right. Shit.”

“S’okay.” Jacob draws away from her, eyes alight, sitting up with a grunt and shuffling back on his knees. He pulls her underwear all the way off, pressing a kiss into her ankle as he does so.

Before Rook can reach out to pull him back down, he dives down and buries his face right into the heat of her thighs, licking a stripe up her folds and honing in on her clit.

“Fu—fuck—Jaco—mmf!” Rook gasps, her hand flying up to cover her mouth again. She shuts her eyes and writhes under his tongue, stifling another gasp into her hand when she feels two fingers slip inside her as his other hand plays with her oversensitive nipple again.

Jacob's tongue moves wickedly against her. Hot and wet and soft swirling around her clit while he scissors his fingers. The sounds coming from him are lewd—wet lapping mixed with his own stifled moans. It's just quiet enough that all Rook has to worry about is keeping _herself_ quiet.

He hooks her legs over his shoulders. She's so fucking wet that he slips a third thick finger into her with ease, thrusting his fingers in and out as he sucks down hard on her clit, swiping his tongue over the swollen nub.

Rook continues to clamp her hand over her mouth, breathing heavily out of her nose. Her other hand tangles through his red hair in a desperate fist, and when she pulls on it he groans into her. He wraps his offhand around his cock, pumping himself quickly.

Everything is so _warm_ , so _good_ , she feels herself well on her way that when Jacob looks up at her she nearly comes at the sight of him. Eyes dark and hooded, hair fucked, mouth slick with her, the facial hair around his mouth glistening wet. Fingers still inside her and hand pumping his cock. His eyes rake her body slowly, looking at her like she's a five-course meal.

“Tell me when you're close, baby,” he purrs quietly, voice gravelly and low.

Baby _. God._ Rook nods, already pretty fucking close, not daring to move her hand from her mouth. Then Jacob descends on her clit again, crooking his fingers against her tightening walls, making Rook arch her back and clench her thighs around his head.

Jacob gorges on her clit, sucking and prodding with all his tongue is worth, fingers scissoring inside her. Rook gasps into the palm of her hand, pulling on his hair again. She starts to speak before she remembers to remove her hand, then after a few heavy breathes she risks lifting her palm from her mouth.

“Jacob—I’m close—fuck, I'm really close.”

His mouth leaves her folds after one last lick and he moves forward, slow and cat-like ( _that's what he is, isn't he? just a massive fucking cat_ ). He kisses up the length of her torso at an agonizingly slow pace until he makes it back to her lips. His mouth is wet, tastes tangy with her. They kiss messily, desperately, just tongues surging into each other's mouths. Rook reaches down and swats his hand away from his throbbing cock and takes it in her own palm, sliding up and down with a quick ease, precum smeared along the shaft for smoother pumping.

His newly freed hand grabs her hip, thumb rubbing absent, bruising circles into her while this other hand thrusts fingers in and out of her cunt. Rook can feel it, a wave cresting inside her, fuck, any second now if Jacob keeps doing what he's doing.

Jacob kisses her neck, then breathes right into her ear, “Y'gonna come for me? Fuck, you're so wet, c'mon, come into my hand, sweetheart.”

He rubs his thumb into her swollen clit and Rook mewls, resorting to biting down on his shoulder to stop herself from crying out as she rides out her release, spilling into his hand. Her vision bleaches out for a second in her orgasm, her offhand tangling and tugging at his hair. Jacob groans in pleasure when her teeth sink into the skin of his shoulder, biting down hard enough to draw blood.

“Look at you, fuck, you come so pretty, baby.” Jacob hums as his hand leaves her hip and covers her own to pump his cock together, picking up the pace. Rook feels the last of her squirt into his hand, muscles loosening, sweaty chest heaving. Her mouth leaves his shoulder and finds his, kissing him hard, sucking on his tongue.

Their joined hands pump his cock faster and faster, Jacob tensing on top of her, coiling up, his fingers slipping out of her.

“Almost there,” he moans, “Almost—”

“Think you can be quiet while you come on me?” Rook teases against his lips. “Come on, Jacob, shoot on me. Don't mess up the sheets, Jacob. Just on me,” she pauses, considering, “only me.”

“F—Fuck, _only you_ ,” Jacob's mouth goes slack on hers as he shudders, the warm hand over hers loosening when something thick and warm shoots on to her belly, miraculously avoiding her stitches and splashing up in thick ropes over her breast. He sighs, squeezing her hip with a slippery hand. “Only you, fuck, never gonna let anyone else touch you. Never again.”

“Is that right?” she whispers, still pumping his softening cock, feeling the last of him spill out onto her.

When he's spent, she finally lets him go, looping her arms around his neck and pressing him closer into a sloppy kiss. Jacob’s lips bruise against hers, then he breaks away, flopping down next to her. He sucks her cum off his fingers, licks whatever's left off the palm of his hand.

It's quiet for a few heartbeats, the two of them just breathing, basking in the afterglow. Rook feels a tiredness seep into her limbs, the reality of where she is and what her plan was today clearing the fog in her head. She should really move before she falls asleep, the bed is feeling softer and softer by the second.

Jacob seems to snap back to reality too. He turns his head to her, his voice still low and breathy as he asks, “Why are you here, Deputy?”

His tone is flat, a cool expression carefully set on his flushed face. Rook sighs, shifting so her head is closer to his, careful not to move her body too much so his semen on her torso doesn't drip onto the sheets.

“I'm not here to kill anyone,” she says quietly, watching his muscles relax ever so slightly. She doesn't say that about twenty minutes ago she was contemplating snapping his sister's neck and sniping his brother across the Compound. “I'm following a lead. About the Bliss. The mercs.”

“Can't be good news if your lead brought you here.” Jacob pinches the bridge of his nose. “Shit.”

“Shit.” Rook agrees, pressing her mouth into a thin line. “You're not gonna like what I have to say.”

“If it's what I'm thinking, yeah, m'definitely not gonna like it.”

Rook frowns at him. “You know about Joseph?”

Jacob sighs, weary once again. “Had suspicions. I was in fuckin’ denial.”

“I'm not gonna kill him,” Rook assured him. The unspoken _yet_ to her promise hangs heavy in the air between them. “I need to know why he's doing this. And what he's getting out of this. Unless…”

Jacob meets her questioning look with a derisive snort. “No, he hasn't told any of us. There are something's Joseph never shares with us, I'm assuming this is one of them.”

“Well then, I should get going. How about I come back later and let you know what I find?”

He twists on the sheets, propping himself up on his elbows as he looms over her, noses touching. “So long as you come back.”

He kisses her then, slow and sure, hand caging around her neck, thumb rubbing circles on the hollow of her throat. She hums against him.

“Shower?” He asks, dragging his lips along her jaw.

“Yes, please,” Rook says eagerly, “I'm all sweaty and sticky. I gotta be careful getting up, don't wanna mess up the bed with your cum all over me.”

Jacob only huffs in response, then hooks a strong, scarred arm under her knees with his other slipping under her shoulders and sweeps her up off the bed, carrying her to the bathroom.

“Oh,” Rook says, grinning into the scars on his chest. “This works too.”

 

-

 

“What happens now?” She quietly asks later, catching the towel he throws at her after he's briskly dried off.

Jacob hums a soft _hmm?_ in response, too far from her to properly hear. He’s left the bathroom, barefeet padding across the room as he picks up his jeans and slips them on, blue eyes scouring the floor for his belt.

Rook laughs quietly at the sight, watching from the bathroom, towel still clutched in her hands. She starts drying her hair, a part of the off-white towel flipping over her face, blocking her view.

“Something funny, Deputy?” Jacob is right in front of her, using two fingers to move the towel away from her face to reveal himself, still just wearing his jeans. For someone so big, he moves so fucking quietly.

“Just—of _course_ you're the type of guy that goes commando.”

“And?” Jacob quirks an eyebrow, hands settling on her bare hips, still wet from the shower, his thumbs rubbing circles into her skin.

“Nothing.” Rook shrugs innocently, towel dropping down around her neck. “Just an observation.”

He regards her with a completely unimpressed expression, one that might have had Rook blanching if it wasn't for the amused crinkle around his eyes.

She frowns back at him, worries creeping back into her head. She presses a kiss on the soft, scarred skin of his chest, the fuzz on him tickling her lips, metal ball chain cold on her cheek. When she looks up at him he's frowning back at her. His brows are knitted together and his mouth hangs half-open like he's about to say something. She gives him a moment to find words, let him talk first, but instead he clamps his mouth shut, jaw clenched.

“What happens now?” She says softly, echoing her question from earlier. She pokes him in the chest with her index finger, then points to herself. “What do we do about _this_?”

“I think you and I both know how this ends,” he says, gaze hardening. The thumbs massaging her hips go still. “Unless you plan on quitting your efforts to stop Joseph?”

“Only if you all stop the shit you guys are doing, then yeah.” Rook scowls, shoving him back. “But we both know what’s not gonna happen.”

Jacob steps back, following the motion of Rook’s shove with grace. His hands slip away from her hips, falling by his sides, fists clenching and unclenching. “Then why ask? Why ask this shit at all? What the fuck do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know!” She makes a frustrated sound, shrugging the towel off her shoulders and wrapping it around herself, covering up, feeling too damn vulnerable. “Fuck, I was just—I don’t fucking know.”

He scoffs. He scratches at his beard, shakes his head, then turns away from her, walking back to his pile of clothes by the bed.

Rook sighs, face pinched. _Stupid, fucking stupid to even ask._

She hastily dries the rest of herself off with the towel and chucks it back onto the towel rail. She walks out of the bathroom, ignoring Jacob, and picks up her clothes, yanking them on. After she gets her boots back on, she starts to gather her weapons, picking her knives up off the floor. She doesn’t see Jacob’s knife or his rifle—he must have taken them back while she was still toweling herself off.

She wonders if she should even come back to Jacob’s cabin to brief him on what she learns later. He probably doesn’t need the information, with how close he is with his family she’s sure he could probably get Joseph to confide in him sooner or later. Sure, he said that Joseph hasn’t talked, but he might just open up to Jacob sooner or later. There isn’t really a point for Rook to come back to his cabin except to, well, just _see_ him. With both of them knowing this is just going to end in blood, though, and with how _that_ sorry excuse of a conversation went, should she even bother? Is he done with her?

When she slips the strap of her rifle over her shoulder she feels a rough hand skirt along her wrist. Rook spins around, pulling her arm away. Jacob’s standing in front of her ( _motherfucker moves so damn quiet_ ), holding his rifle and knife out to her.

“Better take these with you,” he says gruffly, face blank. “Don’t want anyone asking me how I got ‘em back.”

Rook answers with a nod, taking the weapons. She shrugs on the red rifle, avoiding Jacob’s gaze as she does so. She stares at the floor, sheathing the knife where she usually does by her hip. Her eyes dart to meet his for just a second as she says, “I’m gonna go.”

Then she’s turning back around, heading towards the window she had entered the cabin from. She peeks through the curtain, checking that the coast is clear, before drawing it to the side, sunlight hitting her face as she pushes the window up.

She props her knee up on the windowsill to angle herself for her exit when she hears her name quietly spoken behind her. Then there’s a warm hand on her shoulder slowly steering her back around. Jacob’s other hand rests at the base of her skull as he leans down and kisses her deeply—it’s enough to ease some of Rook’s worries. He squeezes her shoulder lightly before he pulls away.

“Make sure you come back to me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~reunited and it feels so good~
> 
> there was supposed to be a more plotty scene at the end of the chapter but damn this got too long again, guess that'll be in the next chapter!
> 
> i took some liberties with the layout joseph's compound, and i'm gonna continue doing that lmao


	11. Chapter 11

Rook shuts the window to Jacob's room and climbs onto the roof, surveying the compound. Everyone is still going about their business, it doesn't look like anyone had heard them. Though she can’t tell whether or not the Peggies are deliberately avoiding his cabin because of his threat to the Peggie that knocked on his door or… Well, she just hopes it was because of his threat.

The air outside is a lot colder than inside the warmth of Jacob’s cabin, and it raises goosebumps on her skin when the breeze tousles her not quite dry hair. She has till sundown, which is when she agreed to meet Jacob back in his cabin to debrief before sneaking off the island… or staying the night.

Sneaking around the compound is just as uneventful as it was before she unknowingly crept into Jacob’s cabin. It’s strange, how her fingers itch for a fight, for a kill. She wonders if other members of the Resistance feel this way too—there’s a lack of remorse when it comes to killing, nowadays. Everyone’s too jaded, taking a life has lost its impact for everyone, but she wonders if people also think about how they should feel guilty, feel _something_. There’s no guilt for Rook, just a curiosity behind the absence of it.

Every time she’s hiding behind a crate, painfully listening to drab conversation between Peggies, she wants to just kill them. It would be so easy, but the consequences that follow wouldn’t. Now that she’s completely canvassed the area, she can confirm that Joseph isn’t out and about. Rook’s seen Faith, making rounds with her little watering can. She’s seen John, entertaining a group of trembling civilians. She’s even seen Jacob, fully dressed and meandering, stopping some Peggies as he walks tall—most likely looking for John. It’s funny to see how everyone in his vicinity suddenly stands up a little straighter, eyes hardening, voices octaves lower than it was before.

Joseph must be in the church, the only place she hasn’t searched. Something in her gut told her to save the church for last. Rook stalks towards it. With the round she’s made around the compound she’ll have to pass by John and those civilians again. Great.

It’s not like she _doesn’t_ want to save them… she just can’t at the moment. Saving them interferes with her plans. It’ll start a fight, and that’s the last thing she wants. She’s glad that she’s here alone, no one to judge her for painfully turning a blind eye.

“Ah, I see you _finally_ decided to show up,” she hears John say. Rook peeks out from the bushes to see who he’s talking to, though she already knows. Jacob strolls towards his brother, head held high, face schooled into his unfazed, unreadable expression. John squints at him. “I heard you gave one of my men a hard time.”

Silence, for a moment. Then, gruffly, “I was busy.”

Rook wants to laugh.

“Hm,” John frowns, looking dissatisfied by the vague answer. He turns his attention back to the civilians. “Well, this is what I wanted to show you. I have a present for you.”

“Aw, you shouldn’t have,” Jacob deadpans, crossing his arms over his chest. Rook watches as John walks past the tied up hostages. There are a few crates behind them, next to something large, covered by a black tarp. “We need to talk, John. About our _theory_.”

“That’s exactly why I wanted to speak with you earlier. While you were ‘ _busy_.’” John tuts, curling his fingers around the edge of the tarp. “But first—”He pulls the tarp away with the flair of a magician pulling tablecloth. _Dramatic asshole._ “—a gift.”

It’s a cage. Through the bars Rook can see something small moving inside. A dog? No—a wolf, gangly with early adolescence, gnawing at the mangled remains of a corpse. Jacob doesn’t say anything, just raises his eyebrows and paces towards the cage, blocking the little thing from Rook’s view in the bushes.

“Well?” John asks, clasping his hands together, his twitching smile wide and flaunting pearly white teeth. “I know most of your Judges were lost when… _well_ , I know you’d rather I don’t bring that up. You had two personal Judges of your own, yes? Perhaps this could fill the void.”

“How thoughtful of you,” Jacob says flatly, but gazes into the cage with interest. “He’s a small thing. Gotta see if he’ll be Strong enough for the Judge process.”

He looks at John, then at the group of civilians on their knees. “Got anyone to spare?”

“Some of them are for Faith, as well as myself but…” John trails off with a dramatic, long-suffering sigh, shoulders rising and falling. He strides towards the line of civilians, Rook counts about five people, and stops behind one of them. The man is shaking, keeping his head down. John touches the man’s neck, inked fingers trailing up to brush through sweaty, blond hair. “I suppose you can take this one.”

John nods at one of the Peggies standing by. The Peggie hefts the blond civilian up, pushing him onto his feet. He stumbles forward, shoulders hunched and glancing around, squirrely. The Peggie pulls him towards Jacob, towards the cage.

“Untie him,” Jacob commands, looking the civilian up and down. The Peggie frees the blond’s hands. Rook’s stomach lurches as she watches from her hiding place. “Throw him into the cage.”

Rook sees John shoot his brother a curious side-eye. “I hope you won’t let my gift die too quickly, Jacob.”

Jacob holds up his hand, a silent command for the Peggie to _stop_. The Peggie silently obeys, hand hovering right over the latch to the cage. Jacob’s head tilts curiously, a slow, night-creature movement, looking at John then looking back to the blond, who’s begun to tremble.

“My brother may have a point. _Look_ at me when I’m talking to you.” The blond freezes up at his tone and looks up at Jacob with wide, fearful eyes. “Good, good. Now, d’you think you’d be able to take on that pup?”

The blond stammers so quietly Rook almost misses it. “Uh, y-yes—”

“Yes _sir_.”

“Yes sir,” the blond nods, maybe nods too much. He suddenly looks too eager, wants to show he’s worth more alive. He wants to prove himself to Jacob, Rook realizes. It’s an effect Jacob seems to have on a lot of people. “I-I think m-maybe I can.”

“Just maybe?” Jacob’s voice is hard, stern.

“I-I can. I can do it. It’s… it’s so small, I c-could probably take it down quickly.”

“Hm, you’re right. This fluffball ain’t even half your size. You could probably kill it in, what, five minutes?” Jacob muses, then addresses the Peggie by the cage. “You. Y’think you could kill it quickly?”

A terse nod. “Yes sir.”

Jacob makes a show of thinking, bottom lip pushed up as he strokes his red beard in contemplation. “This isn’t a fair fight at all. No, no, no, we can’t have that.” He looks back at the blond, who’s looking more unsure by the second. “To see if you’re Strong, we have to even the odds. It’s no test to either of ya if y’could overpower the damn thing in a minute. If it was a full-grown wolf, or a Judge, maybe, then that would be fair. Guess I’ll have to even out the playing field myself, huh?”

Before the blond can stutter out a response, Jacob’s arms lash out, yanking one of the blond’s arms with his large hands and bringing it down on his knee. Lightning fast, nothing but a blur of red and green. Rook hears the hard sound of bones crunching and snapping as the blond screams in agony, both the cultists and John completely unfazed.

“Sh, sh, there ya go,” Jacob soothes, no trace of sympathy on his scarred face. He lets the blond’s ruined arm go and pats his face as he whimpers. “See? That’s better. A broken arm makes it even. Now you’re ready.”

Jacob nods at the Peggie near him, and Rook feels her stomach lurch as she sees the poor blond thrown into the cage with the snarling little wolf pup. The cage door shuts with an iron _clang_.

“This isn’t what I thought you would do with my present,” John says, his voice meaning to scold but his expression is gleeful.

The wolf pup comes up to the blond’s knee. The blond, face contorted with fear and pain, clutches his broken arm and backs up all the way against the bars. The wolf, old blood all over its little snout, begins to growl, pawing towards the snivelling man.

Jacob watches, arms crossed over his chest, unmoving, assessing.

The little wolf snaps its bloody teeth. The blond cries out, good arm flying out to either brace himself or attack the pup.

Rook looks away, receding back into the bushes with a shallow breath. She can hear a mixture of snarls and raw screams. She leaves, sneaking as quickly as she can towards the church. She doesn’t want to watch this. She doesn’t want to watch helplessly from the sides while Jacob creates his own little Colosseum within the cramped cage.

What was she expecting? Did she think now that Jacob’s lost the Whitetail Mountains and a majority of his army he’ll stop hurting people? The Seeds are monsters, all of them, and she’s gone and fucking caught _feelings_ for one of them. Did she think that somehow he’d just stop? That he wouldn’t be as bad anymore? She believed she could separate Jacob in the bunker from Jacob Seed the Herald, when instead she should have been accepting the reality that they’re the same person.

She heads towards the church, guiltily chewing on her lip as she gets further away from the brutality. Away from her thoughts.

The church doors are closed, just like when she first got here with Whitehorse and the other deputies ( _and Burke—stop forgetting that guy exists, you still have to rescue him_ ). There's no way she can sneak in through the door without anyone noticing her. There are the windows… but it doesn't look like they can be opened. She circles loosely around the church, and spots her opening.

Broken window on the right. There's some scaffolding around it, and a board resting against it—a lazy solution to sealing it up before it's properly repaired. Before she approaches, she watches the other windows—no movement, the church is most likely empty. _Okay_ , _last place to look._

She's approaching near the backside of the church, so no one near the front would really see her. The positioning of crates and cabins block her from view. It's just her, the church, and the fence—

“Hey, you!”

—and that Peggie rounding the back corner she didn't fucking check. Rook spins around wildly, facing away from the broken window, and spots another cultist following behind him. _Oh, great, he's brought a friend._ They're the two cultists she saw by the docks, she realizes, judging by the fishing rod in the latter Peggie's hands.

Rook’s hands move for her throwing knives, but she remembers that killing people would just make this worse. Plus, now that Jacob’s alive, she had already told him she wasn’t going to kill anyone. Fuck, but they’ve already seen her, fuck _fuck_. The Peggie in front sputters for a moment of surprise, and Rook doesn’t have any time to think. He reaches for his gun, and Rook lunges at him.

She wraps her hands around the barrel of his rifle and headbutts the bridge of his nose, hearing bones crunch. He yelps, fingers loosening around his gun for a split second long enough for Rook to wrest it from his grip and clock him in the head _hard_.

He drops to the ground as the other Peggie tosses his fishing rod aside and picks up a hammer from the toolbox by the scaffolding. Rook barely dodges the swing of the hammer, the metal head gliding bruisingly along her bicep as she sidesteps.

As he completes the motion of the swing, hammer lowered by his side as he coils up for another attack, he opens his mouth. So far the commotion had just been the sound grunting and wind whipping in her ears as she moves swiftly, but this Peggie plans to scream, to alert everyone.

Rook can’t have that happening. Rook swears under her breath and surges forward, arms raised, leaving her front open for attack.

She tackles the Peggie to the ground mid-swing, clamping a hand over his gross, open mouth to stifle whatever noise he had planned to make. The hammer hits her stomach, swiping along the top her stitches. Rook has to press her lips together, bite down a pained shriek as she feels something open.

Her _goddamn_ stitches.

They both tumble onto the grass with a thump. The Peggie, having fallen backwards from Rook’s tackle, bumps his head against the ground. As he blinks away the daze, Rook kicks the hammer out of his hands and tries to scramble for the rifle she dropped, sharp pain throbbing in her stomach. Her fingers brush along the grip before a hand clamps down around her leg and drags her away, soil grazing along the base of her palms as she tries to hold herself in place.

Rook sends a kick at the Peggie's face, but his head only jerks to the side as he tugs sharply and drags her away from the gun. The Peggie flips her onto her back and wraps two hands around her throat, squeezing. Rook tries and fails to push him away with one hand while the other paws around blindly in the grass looking for something, _anything_.

The Peggie's face has gone tomato red, contorted with effort as he squeezes her windpipe shut. Just when she starts the desperate croak for air, her fingers find something thin. It's the fishing rod. She trails along the line to find the hook, and flings it at the Peggie's face. He hisses as the hook slashes red down his cheek, the surprise uncoiling him just long enough for Rook to clamp her free hand over his mouth and bring a knee up into his groin.

His pained moan is stifled by Rook’s palm. His hands loosen around her neck and she flips them both over, drawing on the fishing line, spinning it twice around her hand for security before she takes the line into both of her hands and loops it around the Peggie’s neck.

Rook hisses through gritted teeth from the pain and exertion as she pulls the line taut against his flushed throat, shrugging off the weak hands scrabbling at her arms. For a few moments, there’s only the sound of distressed grunting and the breeze whispering through the trees. _Can’t kill him_ , she reminds herself, _no killing this time._

Rook starts shimmying the both of them around, towards the fallen rifle. She makes sure to relieve a _little_ of the pressure around the Peggie’s neck so she doesn’t end up killing him by accident. When its within reach, she sucks in a breath, counts to three, and lets go of the fishing line. The Peggie gasps for air, too preoccupied with catching his breath to stop Rook as she jets towards the rifle. With steady hands, she brings the butt of the rifle down on his head. He goes limp. Rook shuffles forward and presses two fingers to his neck, searching for a pulse. Weak, but still there. Alive.

Little spots of blood are seeping through her shirt. Wincing, she slowly lifts up the hem.

“Shit,” she whispers. Some of her stitches are torn. It doesn’t look too bad, she can definitely wait till later to fix them up, but there’s a big ugly bruise blooming right at the top of the bleeding stitches and stretching up to right under her bra. The combination of it burns, throbs, and stings all at once. _God_ , it hurts.

But it’s not gonna kill her, she can fucking bear it. She pulls out her medkit and just slaps a bandage onto the torn stitches—a temporary solution. She can keep going.

It takes an almost herculean effort to hide the unconscious cultists, breathing raggedly from the exertion of hauling the bodies along the grass and into the dumpster around the corner. When she goes around the corner again, back to the broken window, she makes it just past the corner before diving back against the dumpster’s side.

A cult VIP saunters towards the scene of the fight. Rook definitely should have been paying more attention when she was hiding the bodies. Rook peeks from around the corner, the VIP’s eyes set on the scaffolding by the broken window, stopping in her tracks and narrowing her Blissed eyes as she notices the hammer lying in the grass.

Rook’s lucky she thought to toss the rifle and the fishing rod into the dumpster.

“Complacent,” she hears the VIP tut, probably cataloguing the misplaced hammer in her memory to discipline some unlucky cultist about this later.

The VIP gathers up her long skirt with one hand and lowers down to pick up the hammer. She drops it back into the toolbox and holds the handles on the sides. The contents jingle metallically as she carries it away, walking back to the main areas of the Compound.

Rook watches her disappear behind the cabins and waits a minute before leaving her hiding spot by the dumpster. It might just be the pain dulling her, but she’s tired. _If another fucking Peggie shows up, I’m gonna give up and burn this place._

She glances through the windows of the church again, the area’s still clear. Rook steps up onto the scaffolding and pulls the board back, carefully avoiding remnant shards of glass around the frame as she maneuvers through it.

“Finally,” Rook mutters to herself, placing the board back in its place. She dusts off her jeans with a sigh that echoes quietly in the empty church.

She walks through the pews into the the center isle, pivoting on her heels to face the dais. A queasiness knots in her gut when she takes a step forward, realizing she’s in the exact same spot she was when she cuffed Joseph.

She should have never been here in the first place, she should have let Pratt’s teasing get to her and faked sick, could’ve stayed home watching Netflix instead. Hell, Burke should have just listened to Whitehorse—they _all_ should have listened to Whitehorse—and left this shit alone.

Sure, it was bad, but their attempt to arrest Joseph was the fucking catalyst to the booming violence infesting Hope County.

But she would’ve never met her friends, would’ve never met her _goddaughter_. Would’ve never found out that killing a shit ton of hairy cultists is her forte.

Would’ve never met Jacob.

God, she isn’t even gonna go down that dark dirt road of troubles.

“Stop fucking _brooding_ ,” she murmurs, scowling to herself.

Rook shakes her head and steps up onto the dais, inspecting the wooden finish. There’s a bloodstain near the steps, like there was only a haphazard attempt to mop it away. It could be from the video she watched on the helicopter the night the Reaping began, where the poor guy recording on his phone got his eyes squished like grapes by Joseph’s hand.

There’s an polygonal outline in the center of the dais, judging by the shape it was probably where a podium was once mounted before it was pried off for Joseph’s roaming during his preaching. She walks to the end, stopping by a table stacked with Books of Joseph. Alcoves flank the back of the dais—there’s a stack of chairs tucked into the one on Rook’s left, and on the right there’s a curtain.

A distant scream makes Rook jump, crouching low as she looks around wildly. No one’s come bursting into the church, no one’s passing the windows. The scream dies out, then starts again. The sound is agonized, a wail. It must be the civilians she saw earlier. Rook worries at her bottom lip with her teeth, clenches her fist around the edge of the curtain as guilt hollows out her chest. She wishes she could help.

Rook draws the curtain back. On the other side is an iron spiral staircase, wherever it leads, it’s too dark downstairs to tell. A basement level, probably. It’s odd, Pastor Jerome’s church doesn’t have anything like this, so it’s likely this lower level was built for weird cult shit.

She steps down the first step, pulls the curtain closed behind her, and descends the rest of the iron staircase. It’s a short descent, only takes her a few seconds to reach the bottom. It’s a narrow hallway—dark, cold, and the smell of Bliss is stronger in here. She paws the walls for a light switch, finding none, she instead switches on her flashlight.

Grey cement walls and a low ceiling—it’s quite claustrophobic. When she points her flashlight forward she sees a white metal door a few feet in front of her, as well as particles of Bliss shimmering in the light beam. _Yay, more Bliss._

At least it’s enough to drown out the pain at her abdomen. Not enough to disorient her, but just enough that maybe she’d think it’s pleasant if she didn’t know what lots of Bliss does to people. Plus, there’s the fact that she _despises_ Bliss at this point, with all the trouble it’s given her.

Her footsteps echo, the sound of boots softly hitting cement bouncing on the walls. By the door there are two Bliss tanks, uncovered and lightly wafting Bliss into the hallway like some fucked up dehumidifier. Her fingers curl around the doorknob and she pushes it open slowly, wincing when the groan from the metal hinges is amplified by the acoustics of the dark hallway.

Fluorescent white lights light up the inside of the room. She turns off her flashlight. Eyes sweeping the room, Rook deduces that she’s alone, but the fact that the lights were already on prior to her arrival makes her think someone might be returning here soon.

Two large Bliss tanks sit against the wall, right by the door, the covers thankfully sealed. The room is generally unfurnished, it’s the same dull grey cement. Pipes line the far wall, emerging from the ground, stretching up and disappearing into the ceiling. In the corner in front of the door there’s a single, wooden church kneeler, made for one person. Several candles sit atop it, unlit, with a matchbox tucked neatly next to them. In front of the pew against the wall is a stand holding what she guesses is the Book of Joseph, opened to its center, thin pages pouring Joseph’s words into the room.

Two tables sit in the center of the room. One with a HAM radio set up, along with a regular radio sitting next to it relaying the news, the caster’s voice bounces around the walls of the room.

_“The unsanctioned nuclear testing off the coast of Asia continues. Although most countries in the region have agreed to…”_

There’s burner cell phone, tiny compared to the radio set up, lying on the corner of the table. Next to it is a scrap piece of paper and ball pen. On the paper with a slanted, curling scrawl is:

_~~dial 6 for fischer, check-in daily~~ _

~~__~~ _8 shipments of bliss in exchange for countermeasures put in place_

This has got to be Joseph, who else would have a secret war room ( _prayer room? office of shady shit?_ ) underneath _his_ church? Rook moves to check the next table, frowning when she sees a map of Hope County splayed out across it. She frowns harder when she notices that there’s a coffee mug sitting on the corner of the map, cold and almost finished. _Shit_ , she’s really gotta be quick in here before Joseph comes back.

She scans the map quickly. There are three points marked, one on the center of each region, great big _X_ s in red marker.

“What the fuck,” she murmurs, moving back to the other table and picking up the burner phone. No texts, no contacts, a few calls made to two different numbers. She presses the buttons on the phone hard, heart rate picking up when she sees there are voicemails. She selects the latest one and presses the palm-sized phone against her ear.

“ _My men are dead, Seed. You’re fuckin’ lucky you’ve already popped us enough of yer Bliss to send ya those big as shit bombs you wanted for your ‘Collapse,’_ ” A nasally, unfamiliar voice sneers, tone mocking at _Collapse_. Rook’s fists clench at his words, realizing that killing Fischer hadn’t stopped anything. “ _Remember you hav’ta stick the key into the detonator before you can play God. This is the last you’ll hear of me, can’t say it was nice doing business with ya—_ ”

“It seems that God will not let you perish as well.” Rook’s eyes snap up, cold dread filling her when her gaze meets a familiar yellow ochre tint. With the Bliss dulling her senses and the voicemail blaring into her ear, she was too distracted to listen for anyone. She didn’t even close the damn door properly.

Rook slams the phone onto the table, hands scrambling for her guns. “You fucking—”

Joseph kicks over the massive Bliss tanks by the door, there’s a metal crash of the containers, followed by a wave translucent bluish liquid rushing onto the floor, splashing against her shins. The huge concentration of Bliss spilling into the room immediately takes its effect. Shimmering mint green clouds up in front of her, into her face.

To her own dismay, the gun falls from her loosening fingers, splashing in the puddle of Bliss spreading across the smooth concrete floor. The Bliss is suffocating, cool menthol clouds on her face, fogging her senses and making her see double. She stumbles forward, trying to get to Joseph, to the exit, but her knees buckle and she falls into the puddle.

“You—You can’t do this,” Rook slurs, head feeling so, so heavy. She props herself up on her elbows, trying and failing to stand up. “Your family won’t—”

“Do _not_ speak to me of my family. What I’m doing is for them—for my Flock,” Joseph’s voice cuts across her words, ringing in her head, his soft, controlled voice too _loud_ in her ears. “And you, my Child, God has gifted you to me for this purpose. I see it now.”

Rook can’t see anything through the thick fog of Bliss, she resorts to crawling forward. Her head feels like it weighs a tonne, she can’t even lift it to look away from the floor. Her jeans are soaked with Bliss, the bottom of her forearms sliding wetly along the puddles as she tries to pull herself towards the door. She has to get out, she has to tell Jacob, she has to tell _someone_.

 _Fuck, this is so much worse than the angels in the cave_. So much of it, in this small room with no ventilation—it’s suffocating. She can’t _breathe_ anything else but Bliss. She grunts as she tries to move her limbs, sinking to the floor like they’re filled with sand.

“You cannot fight this,” Joseph’s voice sounds disembodied to her now, the same way Faith’s voice surrounded her when she was first kidnapped by her. Though this is different, with the concentration at the time she could still move—or was it all in her head? “Though I suppose that does not stop you from trying.”

The last thing Rook hears before her Bliss-heavy eyes close is the metal door clicking shut.

 

-

 

The wolf pup John had given him prevailed. The civilian he had thrown into the cage had given one hearty kick, then ended up cowering in the cage before he was ripped to pieces. It wasn’t even a matter of physical strength, the kid didn’t even _try_.

Meat, he was Meat.

Now, Jacob holds the gangly pup by the scruff of its neck, preparing to hose off the animal.

John joins Jacob where he kneels on the grass. John remains standing, unwilling to get grass stains on his pants despite the blood already flecked into the expensive fabric. His coat is gone from when Jacob last saw him carving _LUST_ into a weeping woman. Jacob had left at the time to inspect the pup, checking if it was healthy and whole. Now John’s sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, blood painted over his hands and forearms.

“Y’ready to talk?” Jacob asks, quirking a brow. He twists the faucet handle and water travels up the hose, pouring out of the spout. The pup yaps, trying to move away from the water but is secured in his hold.

“I see he’s already taken a liking to you,” John remarks, looking at the pup before nonchalantly scanning the area. They’re secluded—at a far corner of one of the Bliss gardens, their Faithful safely out of earshot. John lowers his voice. “Something happened with Joseph earlier that… troubles me.”

“Troubled you how?” Jacob pours the water over the pup’s body, watching the blood run off fur.

“You know of his private quarters underneath the church, yes?”

“He doesn’t sleep there.”

“No, you’re correct, he sleeps in his own cabin. _But_ the basement we had built all those months ago for storage had been turned into his own personal prayer room. No one is to enter, as that is where he talks to God.”

Jacob rolls his eyes, looking down at the wolf so John doesn’t see him do so. “Listening in on his prayers, are ya?”

John’s face morphs into a pinched expression, waving one bloody hand dismissively. “Nothing of the sort.”

Jacob moves the hose over the pup’s head, muzzling its mouth shut with his hand. It growls as the water flattens its fur. He glances up at John and holds the hose up. “Hold this.”

John smears the hose with blood as he takes it in his hand, aiming it down at the little wolf. Jacob uses his newly freed hand to scratch at the scruff of its neck, behind the ears, scrubbing with the pads of his fingers. The wolf preens at his movements, it’s cute, really—something he’ll have to eradicate with conditioning and the Judge serum.

“I heard a radio through the door, muffled but I’m sure it was what I heard.” John says, eyes darting left and right, a nervous energy in him. “It wasn’t our Flock’s music, he was listening to one of the Resistance channels, a news broadcast.”

“What were you doing down there?”

“I went down to fetch him for breakfast, before I knocked on the door, I listened. He doesn’t listen to those things, Jacob, not since—”

“Not in a long time, I know, John.” Jacob tries letting go of the pup, just to see what it does. It barks happily and shakes off the water, drops splattering on Jacob and John, but it doesn’t move away, doesn’t take off into the woods. Good. “What are you getting at with this?”

“I just find it—” John shuts his eyes, nostrils flaring. He makes a frustrated sound. “It’s unusual.”

“ _Everything_ is unusual right now,” Jacob says calmly, scratching behind the wolf’s ears. “Think you’re grasping at straws, Johnny.”

John scoffs and starts hosing the blood of his hands and arms, revealing his tattoos. “Fine. I might be. It’s just difficult when we _know_ something is wrong but can’t find anything.”

“Don’t get paranoid. If we stay patient, we’ll find something.” Jacob thinks of the Deputy, that she’s somewhere around rifling for secrets. “In fact, I think we’ll find out something soon.”

“Is that what _you_ wanted to talk to me about?”

“Yeah,” Jacob nods, looking up from the pup to meet John’s eyes. “Don’t have anything solid yet, either, but something’ll surface soon and I’ll tell ya as soon as I find out.”

“I’m worried he’s going to destroy himself,” John says quietly.

“Funny, ‘cause I think he worries the same thing about you.”

John swallows hard, swapping the hose into his other hand to continue washing off the blood. It’s quiet between them for a moment, and then John shoots him a small smile. “You thought of a name yet?”

Jacob snorts and glances down at the wolf. “Judges aren’t given names, John.”

“But this one is _yours_. Shouldn’t he have something that sets him apart from the other Judges? A better title, perhaps?”

“The other Judges are dead. That’s what’ll set this one apart from the rest.”

John clicks his tongue. “You’re no fun at all.”

Jacob’s remark dies on his tongue when he notices Faithful walking briskly around the Compound, guns at the ready. John follows his gaze, the hose in his hand still running.

“Stay alert!” A Chosen shouts, spittle flying out of his mouth. “We have an intruder in the Compound!”

John shuts off the hose, dropping it to the ground. He shakes the water off his hands and strides towards a bustling group of Faithful arming themselves.

“What’s going on?” John asks one of them, voice sharp.

Jacob stands, shaking the water off his hands as well, and whistles sharply. The wolf pup barks and wags its tail animatedly, following closely at his heels. With the way the wolf behaves, it must have had some training before—it may have been one of the survivors from Elk Jaw Lodge, pre-serum. He’d heard that Eli’s Whitetails razed the place, destroyed every last bit of Judge serum and research. He’ll have to find a way to recreate it.

“We found two of our own unconscious behind the church. Their bodies were hidden.” A Faithful answers John, handing him a rifle. “Someone is here.”

 _Shit_. Jacob takes a rifle, striding towards the church. He grits his teeth, closing himself from his concern for the Deputy. “Where’s the Father? Who’s protecting him?”

The Faithful looks to the other men and women with him, they all look just as clueless—and alarmed, caught in their complacency. “We—we will find him, Brother Jacob.”

They start to disperse, urgently heading towards the church. Jacob, wolf trailing behind him, starts to follow when John’s inked hand stops him firmly on the shoulder, _EDEN_ pressing into the sleeve of his jacket. “I’ll go with them. Find Faith.”

Jacob grinds his teeth. “John—”

John’s looks determined, eyes burning blue with concern and eagerness. “ _Please_ , it—I need this, Jacob. If it’s me, if _I’m_ the one who—”

“I’ll go find Faith,” Jacob nods, cutting him off. He gets it. An appearance from John and _only_ John, showing that the Father is his one concern, could shirk some of the doubt Joseph has in him. A show of loyalty while Jacob runs to find their sister instead.

Jacob doesn’t like it. _He_ is supposed to be Joseph’s shield, his protector, his goddamn sword—but John needs this more than he does.

John nods once and leaves with the gun-toting Faithful.

Jacob exhales, white knuckling the grip of the rifle, and leaves in the opposite direction. The Deputy promised him she wouldn’t kill Joseph, not today. And she can take care of herself.

Now to find Faith.

 

-

 

Faith is fine. Delighted, even.

“It was getting boring around here,” Faith grins, rocking back and forth on her barefeet, twirling the empty watering can in her hand.

“This isn’t a game,” Jacob glares, tugging her along by the arm. “C’mon, need to see if Joseph and John are okay.”

“I’m sure they’re fine, Brother.” She doesn’t resist as Jacob pulls her away from the garden shed. She looks behind the two of them, her voice sugarcoated. “ _Who’s this_?”

Jacob doesn’t look behind, but he knows she’s talking about the wolf. “Gift from John. Keep moving.”

“What’s his name?”

Why does everyone keep asking him that? When has he _ever_ named one of his Judges? Jacob looks at her with an icy expression. “No.”

“‘No’ is a strange name,” Faith hums innocently.

“ _No._ ” Jacob repeats, yanking her arm rougher than he did before.

Faith giggles like that piece-of-shit sister she is.

They reach the church, where many of their Flock have gathered, armed to the teeth. Their formation is messy, panicked, and Jacob makes a mental note of that. His sibling’s men haven’t trained as rigorously as he’s trained his Hunters, but he intends to fix that.

The church doors open wide, two Faithful walk out, John and Joseph following behind them. John looks pleased. There’s a genial smile on Joseph’s face, but he remains as unreadable as he always is.

“I am unharmed, my Children,” Joseph announces, arms raised to address all who have gathered.

Jacob lets go of Faith’s arm, the crowd of Faithful parting to make way for the two of them to meet John and Joseph at the front of the church. He hears a small yip come from his wolf behind, and he glances back to see that Faith has picked up the damn thing, cradling it like a baby and cooing as she walks with him.

Jacob huffs and slings the rifle he’s been holding over his shoulder. Joseph welcomes his arrival with two hands bracing his shoulders, Jacob automatically leaning his head down to meet Joseph’s forehead. He smells strongly of Bliss, making Jacob wrinkle his nose slightly.

“You good?” Jacob asks when they part, Joseph’s hands still on his shoulders. “You see anyone?”

Joseph looks at him for one long moment, the tint of his aviators making his unblinking eyes feel reptilian.

“No, Jacob,” his soft voice is smooth, expressionless. “I was only praying to the Voice when John found me.”

 

-

 

It’s almost midnight. Jacob waits in his cabin, sitting back in his chair with his boots propped up on the table, legs crossed at the ankle. He tips his head back, scratching idly at his beard.

The Deputy should have been back hours ago.

He can hear his wolf in its cage outside his cabin, howling.

He had been keeping busy looking over his map of the Whitetails, formulating plans, training exercises, but his mind kept wandering. Impatient with every passing second. A hollow tug in his chest. He hates it.

He could have gone to bed earlier, just accepting that she’s not coming back—but his pillow smells like her, he knows it does. He stays away from his bed. It’s not like he’d ever sleep the whole night anyway.

A foolish, _weak_ part of him thought that maybe, _maybe_ , she’d stay the night. Sneak out just before sunrise like they’re a pair of goddamn teenagers. But she isn’t even going to show up. Probably went back to wherever she stays with the Resistance, leaving Jacob out of her plans.

He doesn’t even know why he bothered to wait this long.

When his wolf finally stops its howling, Jacob’s head is lolled down, asleep in his chair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my god senior year of college is killing me but i was finally able to sit down and fucking write this!!! fuck college!!
> 
> i know nothing about wolves or training wolves don't look at me
> 
> also i promise joseph's motives will be clearer soon
> 
> also finally got my shit together with a proper [tumblr](https://lowtldes.tumblr.com/) if anyone wants to hit me up there!


	12. Chapter 12

Joseph finally permits Faith to return to the Henbane River region, if only for a few days to check in on things. That morning in Joseph’s Compound she’s beaming, aflutter with the good news. As a thank you to The Father, she makes him a circlet of wildflowers she’d gathered herself after her daily duties.

Joseph wears it most of the day, several petals shedding from his crown during one of his sermons. It only disappears after he goes to his prayer room, Joseph telling Faith that in a moment of forgetfulness he accidentally left it there.

To Jacob’s dismay, Faith gathered enough flowers that she has a surplus after weaving Joseph’s. So Faith weaves three more crowns, all made from the same purples and pinks. After dropping one onto her own head with a saccharine smile, Jacob has a horrible feeling of what’s to come next.

Faith stands from the picnic table that she, Jacob, and John sit at. A much needed coffee break for Jacob after long hours of training the Faithful at the Compound. John had joined him minutes later, coat sleeves soaked from baptism after baptism, itching for coffee as well. Faith—Faith was already at the table weaving stems together. Jacob blames his poor lapse of judgement for deciding to sit with her.

Looping a crown through her arm, over the _C 17H21NO4_ embedded in her skin, and holding the other delicately in her hands, she traipses over to John, dropping a circlet of flowers onto his head.

“Thank you, Faith,” John says and waves over a Faithful for more coffee. A haggard young woman scurries over to them, coffee pot at the ready, and stares at John adoringly while she refills his mug. John hardly notices her, just hums, satisfied as the warm drink reappears in his ivory mug.

Jacob stiffens when Faith sets her eager eyes on him, sliding the last crown off her dainty arm and fiddling with it in her hands. He pretends to not notice her, sipping his coffee instead. In fact, he tries to drain it quickly so that he can excuse himself before she takes another step towards him.

But the doting Faithful is faster than both of them, leaning over from where she stands a little too close to a deliberately oblivious John, and refilling Jacob’s empty mug as soon as he sets it back down onto the table. _Son of a bitch._

He glares at the Faithful for a moment, who quietly shrinks back, and then something light is dropped onto his head. Jacob goes still, eye twitching. Leaves tickle the shaved sides of his head.

He turns to his adopted sister, a grim expression on his damaged face. Her smile doesn’t waver, she rocks back and forth on her tiptoes, lace dress swaying at the movement, hands clasped neatly behind her back.

“Well?” She looks at him expectantly, green eyes squinting at him.

He wants to rip it off his head. “Thanks.”

He chooses to ignore the quiet snicker of _he hates it!_ John hides by bringing his mug to his lips.

Faith looks unfazed by the tension, but there’s a triumphant look in her eyes—possibly revelling in the fact that Jacob hasn’t tried to kill her, despite how much he _wants_ to right now, for tossing the damn thing onto his head.

“You’re welcome,” she chirps, eyes flicking between Jacob and John. Her eyebrows shoot up, Jacob can practically see the light bulb appearing over her head. “I forgot to tell you both! We’re all going to have dinner tonight. Just the four of us!”

“Joseph know about this?” Jacob quirks a brow, taking a sip of his coffee. “Where the hell is he, anyway?”

“Underneath the church as usual, I presume.” John supplies, folding his hands on the table, _EDEN_ and _GATE_ lacing together. He tilts his head curiously at Faith, the flowers on his head going crooked at the movement. “What’s the occasion?”

“I just thought it would be nice for all of us to dine together, without the Flock for once, before I leave for the Henbane. The Father was actually the one to suggest it to me!”

A grimace flashes across John’s face before he tries to compose himself, but a pinched expression remains. “Joseph won’t help prepare the meal, will he?”

The corner of Jacob’s mouth quirks up at John’s caution. They’re all familiar with how Joseph can’t cook for shit.

“No, silly.” Faith pokes one of the tiny airplanes on John’s coat. “We’re dining privately but we’ll still have our cooks.”

John relaxes at that. “Good.”

Jacob, eager to leave as he feels the eyes of passing Faithfuls on him and the fucking crown, drains the rest of his coffee and sets the mug down onto the wooden tabletop. He removes the flowers sitting atop his head as he throws a leg over the bench and stands up, holding the circlet in his hand. “See you two later, then. Gonna go continue the wolf’s training, the thing’s probably restless in its cage.”

John nods at him, idly swishing the coffee in his mug.

Faith pouts at the crown in his hand, bottom lip stuck out while she looks up at him with big doe eyes. “You’ll at least keep it, won’t you?”

Jacob huffs, turning to leave. “Until it falls to pieces, sure.”

 

-

 

Rook wakes with a painful crick in her neck. She lifts her heavy head, her skull meeting a wall with a light bump. As light as the bump was, she feels it rattle her brain, seeing spots of sharp colors when she blinks. She groans—it comes out more as a dry croak—and brings her hands to her face. Only one hand hits its mark, pressing into her temple while something hinders her other hand with a metal _clink_.

It feels like it takes forever for her to turn her head in a sluggish motion and look at her wrist.

“Shit,” she rasps, voice hoarse. She’s handcuffed to a pipe. Uselessly, she tries to tug her hand away, as if she expects the chain of the cuff to just snap just like that. The Bliss is still heavy in her body, in her head, blocking whatever shred of common sense she has left.

With a frustrated groan, she gives up on her handcuffed wrist and blinks blearily around the room. Joseph’s private underground quarters. He hadn’t moved her from the room, but he must have dragged her to the far corner to cuff her here. He must be just as immune to the effects of Bliss as Faith is, lucky him.

She’s no longer soaked with Bliss—she must have been out long enough for it to dry. She feels greasy, a film old sweat and dried Bliss clinging onto her skin uncomfortably. Her throat is parched. Her jacket is gone, the hem of her shirt has hiked up. The bandage she had haphazardly slapped onto her torn stitches is gone now, revealing ugly bruising and— _oh_ , new stitches and whatever blood there was has been cleaned. One less thing to worry about.

There are still puddles of the liquid around the room, not as much as before, either having dried up or lazily cleaned, she’s too fucking Blissed to guess. The puffs of Bliss are visibly gone from the air as well, but under the harsh fluorescent lights she can still see particles of the drug dancing with floating bits of dust. By the door, there are new barrels of Bliss, big and small.

Her vision is still hazed, her mind processing things slowly, but she finally notices that there is someone else on the other side of the room. She’s just connected the manbun to the person when Joseph, in the same white button up and black waistcoat she saw him in before, rises from the cushioned church kneeler by the corner and turns around to face her, rosary bound hands still clasped in prayer, eyes closed.

Rook sucks in a breath and tries to back up further against the wall, her freehand sluggishly moving for Jacob’s knife at her waist—which isn’t there. Neither are her throwing knives. Or her guns. _Of course._

“The Bliss will numb the pain of your old wounds. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh.”

Rook’s eyes dart back up from her empty weapon holsters to see Joseph’s unnerving, tinted stare. Head tilted down to regard her where she’s slumped on the ground, posture edging on menacing, contradicting the soothing, paternal tone of his voice. He’s not wrong about the Bliss—she hasn’t felt any sting of her slow-healing wound, no ache of the massive bruise atop it.

“How long have I been out?” Rook asks weakly.

“A little over a day, give or take a few hours.”

 _Fuck_. Jacob’s probably wondering where she is. Her friends are probably wondering where she is. Oh god, she fucking did it again. Grace is going to kill her. _Nick_ is going to kill her.

“Tell me, Child,” Joseph begins softly, his voice echoed and overlapping in the Bliss, shoes tapping against the concrete floor as he crosses the room, slapping wetly into leftover Bliss puddles. He stops by the table where the map of Hope County was ( _still is? she can’t see from this angle and distance_ ) and picks up something red with both hands. Rook is momentarily distracted by something colorful on the edge of the table, pinks and purples ( _flowers?_ ), before Joseph’s soft voice has her attention again. “How did you acquire my brother’s weapons?”

She wants to be a shit, remark with something annoying like _oh these? bought them at a resistance yard sale_ , but the Bliss makes the truth tumble off her tongue, compliant. When she answers, the inside of her mouth feels like it’s full of sand. “Jacob let me have them.”

“When he was brought back to us, he was unarmed.” Joseph stops right in front of her, an arm’s length away, and slowly lowers himself down, stopping just above eye-level with her. He glances down at the red rifle in his hands then back at her, eyes boring into her soul from behind the aviators. “That means you were with him that week he was lost to us.”

Rook is quiet for a few heartbeats, wrestling with her Blissed desire to be helpful, to be truthful to The Father. Then, as a stilted rasp, “Y-yes, I was.”

It dawns on Joseph then. There is no surprise on his face, no raised eyebrows and jaw hanging down into an _oh!_ —only a miniscule shift, a rigidness icing his genial composure. “You were the one my sister’s Faithful killed... And yet you’re alive. Not by accident or chance, but by the grace of God.”

_If you wanna call it that, sure._

“My brother does not take to other people well, and you said he _let_ you have his weapons,” Joseph frowns, disquieted eyes never leaving hers, anunciating every consonant. He pauses for a long time before asking, “Was there a fondness?”

Rook doesn’t answer, just holds her exhausted scowl at him. It’s the only thing she can make herself do through the heaviness of Bliss in her system. She licks her dry lips, god, she wants water.

He tilts his head slightly to the side. “Do you still think my brother is the enemy, Child?”

“Yes.” It’s not a lie. She’s not a complete idiot, despite his… _affection_ , she knows where Jacob’s loyalties lie.

“Does Jacob know you’re here? Alive and lurking among our Flock?”

“Yes,” she blurts. _Fucking Bliss_. She fights through her cottonmouth to backtrack best she can. “No. I don’t know.”

“Lying will do you no good.”

“I don’t know,” is all she can say with a straight face. She doesn’t want to expose Jacob, but it’s difficult right now to just _think_.

Joseph’s neutral expression flickers with doubt. With a kind of _i’m not mad, just disappointed_ look at her he stands up to his full height and steps away to set Jacob’s gun back on the table.

“Why are you doing this?” Rook rasps. She knows she’s testing his patience but she _has_ to know. “I thought you and your cult believed in the end of the world, why try to fake it?”

“The Collapse _is_ coming.” Joseph seethes the words, yellow-tinted eyes controlled when they dart to her. The beads of the rosary wrapped around his hand clamor together as he drops his arms stiffly to his sides. “And _you_ will be the cause of it, you were always supposed to cause it,” his accent thickens along with the intensity of his quiet words. “ _You_ with your Pride and your Wrath, showing us every slight when we tried to help you, tried to _save_ you. When the news came that you had perished in the Whitetails, I had quietly rejoiced it while I mourned for Jacob. Because I have _seen_ you destroy everything, destroy my Family. God showed me so in a vision—a New Eden with my Flock, but built on _my Family’s blood_.”

Joseph closes his eyes, lean shoulders rise and fall with a deep breath. He opens his eyes, his expression placid, controlled. He unwinds the rosary from his hand and sets it gently on the table. “I took Fate into my own hands. Molded the Holy prophecies. What I am doing will not be the _true_ Collapse, no, it will only prepare Hope County for what’s to come.”

 _An express trip to the bunkers_ , Rook realizes, taking in his words. _He plans to trick everyone in the County into thinking the Collapse has come, sending everyone into their bunkers—sending the Seeds into the bunkers, with all of them alive._

“But why are you keeping me here?” Rook asks, her hoarse voice scratching dryly at her throat. “Why not get rid of me now?”

The smallest of smiles creeps onto Joseph’s lips. “Someone must push the button. The Voice foretold an early Collapse by your hands. You survived everything you’ve been through for a reason, Child. This is your redemption, your sacrifice for the good of my Flock.”

There’s ice in Rook’s veins, her eyes go wide. “No—no, you can’t expect me to… You can’t _force_ me to do this.”

Joseph strides over to the wall by the door and picks up a small barrel of Bliss. When he uncovers it, that dreaded green cloud puffs out of the barrel. Rook scrambles back as far as the handcuff will let her when Joseph strolls toward her. She tries to bat him away, but he snatches her freehand, cold, long fingers locking around her wrist. He sets the open barrel down by the pipe she’s tethered to, grabs Rook’s hair with his other hand, and forces her head down into the barrel.

She tries to kick, to fight—but _the Bliss_. The Bliss calms her, simultaneously lightening and weighing down her limbs.

“Fear not, my Child.” Joseph soothes above her, holding her head down. “With enough Bliss, you will see clearly.”

 

-

 

The common areas of Joseph’s Compound are deserted for dinner, save for the occasional guard seen patrolling far from their table. Candles lineup on the rectangular table dragged out by the church just for dinner, casting a warm glow on the food while the lights around the Compound do the rest for visibility under the night sky.

Usually, when the Flock dines together there’s a bonfire. There’s song, there’s laughter. Tonight the Flock eat quietly in their cabins, their tents, out of sight to give the Seeds some semblance of privacy to their outdoor dining.

Each of them have their own side of the table, Joseph and Jacob on the short ends of the rectangular table, further across each other than Faith and John are. The little wolf lies curled up next to Jacob’s chair, breathing softly.

“I have some news,” John starts, after they’ve all said grace. His knife taps against the hard plastic plate as he begins to cut away at the roasted venison they’ve all been served. “My men who were found unconscious yesterday—they’ve finally remember what happened.”

“Oh?” Faith muses, shoving a spoonful of mashed potatoes into her mouth.

 _Oh_ , indeed. Jacob plays it cool, raises both eyebrows quizzically at John on his right. His dog tags click against the table’s edge as he leans forward to shovel food into his mouth.

“What did they see?” Joseph asks slowly.

“I would say they saw a ghost, but a ghost can’t knock people out and toss them away like garbage.” John says, quirking a brow. He meets Jacob’s eyes, watching him with rapt attention. A slyness creeps into his blue eyes. “They said it was the Deputy.”

“She’s alive?” Faith frowns. She sets her fork down, tucking her hair behind her ear. She’s the only one still wearing a flower crown.

“Apparently so. I can’t quite figure out why she would have been sneaking in the Compound, though.”

“To try to stop us or kill us, maybe. She seemed… _headstrong_ when I spoke to her in the Henbane those months ago.”

“But why not just kill the two she threw into the dumpster? And we’re unharmed, aren’t we?” John briefly glances across to Faith, but continues to keep his eyes trained on Jacob. It’s almost as if the looks John is throwing his way are meant to be understood telepathically, probably trying to cut into his head, pick apart Jacob’s brain to find out if he knew anything about this. John sighs. “We found no trace of her aside from those two unconscious. She didn’t even try to attack us. Where did all that _Wrath_ go, I wonder?”

Faith makes a noncommittal sound, shrugging her shoulders as she goes back to digging into her food.

Where _did_ she go? Jacob aches to know— _hates_ that he’s given in to something that makes him feel so Weak. He stabs into his food, maybe harder than necessary.

“Perhaps something pulled her here,” Joseph offers, biting a small piece of venison off his fork. From behind his aviators, his eyes keep coming back to glance at Jacob and _only_ Jacob. “Whatever happened, it is by God’s will. We’ll find a way to take care of our Deputy problem, I’m sure.”

Jacob chews at his food stiffly, the roast souring in on his tongue as he meets Joseph’s reptilian eyes. Does he know? Did John tell him? He wouldn’t have, he _wouldn’t_. Maybe Joseph, in his fucking all-seeing glory, can just _tell_. Jacob wouldn’t put it past him.

“Hm, I wonder what could have caused her to gravitate towards the Compound,” John murmurs innocently, the corner of his mouth tugging up into a small smirk as he stares at Jacob. “What do _you_ think, Jacob? You’ve been awfully quiet.”

 _Little shit_. Jacob sits rigidly in his chair, picking a small bit of venison from his plate and dropping it on the ground in front of the wolf pup.

“If she’s really alive, we should be upping security here.” Jacob says calmly, raises his eyebrows in surprise as authentically he can. He turns away from John’s knowing gaze and looks across to Joseph, who still watches him intently. Something feels wrong, but he can’t place what it is. He knows Joseph is hiding something, has _always_ been hiding something, but he doesn’t know what it is. “There’s no telling what could’ve happened when the Deputy was here. She could’ve killed anyone one of us, we’re lucky she didn’t.”

“Hmm, yes,” Joseph hums. “Lucky.”

“And she just walked right out of here, flew right under our noses.” Faith snaps her fingers.

Joseph hums thoughtfully once more, fork clicking against his plate. John glances at Jacob like he has something to say, but holds back.

“Trained some’ve the men here today. Harder than their usual training regimen,” Jacob states after swallowing down some of the roasted venison, swiftly changing subjects. “With what I have planned here for them when I get back, in a few weeks they’ll be as deadly as my Hunters.”

“ _When_ you get back?” John frowns.

“Goin’ with you to your region tomorrow,” Jacob says to Faith. Not asking, stating a fact. “I need to recreate the Judge serum for the wolf. Your chemists could help me.”

Faith smiles as she chews her food, nodding eagerly. Joyed by the prospect of Jacob looking to her for help.

“I was starting to like your wolf the way he is,” John says, a faux sadness gleaming in his eyes. “He’s adorable, isn’t he?”

“He _is_ ,” Faith agrees, cooing down at the wolf as she drops a lump from her plate onto the ground. The wolf happily scarfs down on it.

“That’s the problem,” Jacob huffs, eyes tilted to the left as he watches Faith coddle the pup. “I’m going to make _it_ Strong.”

John looks slyly at Jacob. “And you still won’t give _it_ a name?”

“It’s gonna be a _Judge_.” Jacob stresses, gaze stern. “I’ll fuckin’ call it a Judge.”

 

-

 

They reach the Henbane by noon.

The roads are generally clear, their party passing a few wandering angels and Bliss hallucinations Jacob doesn’t even want to bother with. He’ll keep the pedal to the metal, thanks, he’s so goddamn tired of Bliss.

Jacob’s making good time when Faith tells him she wants to stop by and check on the Bliss fields before they reach her Gate. That’s fine with Jacob, he’s in no rush as he hangs right on the road. He and Faith ride together in a regular Eden’s Gate pickup, with two pickups with mounted guns trailing behind them.

The empty cage in the truck bed rattles when they swerve past crossing deer. The wolf pup’s supposed to be in the cage, but Faith refused to let him lock the damn thing in there, arguing that it would be just as secure snoring on her lap. _Whatever, so long as she doesn’t come crying when it slobbers all over that dress of hers._

The problem, however, is that the wolf no longer wants to stay on Faith’s lap. It wants to stay on _his_. It’s small enough to wriggle out of Faith’s lenient grasp with a bark and clamber under Jacob’s arms, its tiny paws digging into his acid wash jeans and scratching at his jacket.

“ _Faith_ ,” Jacob warns, voice low and dangerous as he keeps his eyes on the road. “Get this damn thing off me before we crash.”

It’s a lie—they’re not going to crash. The pup is small enough, _tiny_ compared to Jacob’s large frame, that it doesn’t block his view of the road, let alone hinder his hands on the steering wheel.

“Aw, but Brother, he misses you!” Faith crows, kicking her barefeet up onto the dashboard now that she has more space.

His jacket’s only zipped halfway up, something Jacob now realizes was a mistake he made this morning as the pup huffs and climbs _into_ his jacket. Jacob glares at the road as the pup nuzzles into him, his beard flattening against its head as it tucks itself under his chin. He ignores how comforting it feels, vein pulsing at his temple when he glances at Faith and sees her smug smile.

Jacob can’t _wait_ to turn this thing into a cold, killing machine.

“Brother,” Faith says in her irritating, singsong voice. “If I had a camera.”

“You will _never_ speak of this. I'll break every fucking bone in your body if you do.”

She snickers, curling her toes on the dashboard. “I’ll forever cherish this secret between you, me, and the eyes of God.”

Jacob continues to drive in silence, the pup relaxed inside his jacket, teeth occasionally tangling with the chain of the tags hanging from his neck. Faith sings along with her namesake song pouring out of the built-in truck radio.

The road stretches on, and Jacob keeps his gaze fixed on the horizon, sharp eyes catching onto any movement around them. Any movement that could possibly be the Deputy—he’d be lying if he said she wasn’t part of the reason he’s left Joseph’s Compound. Birds flutter out of treetops, Faithful on the side of the road kicking sinners into their knees. From time to time, Faith points out pilgrimage checkpoints when they drive past.

Jacob hears the Bliss fields before he sees them—the Gate's music blaring from over the top sound systems in truck beds.

“Are your people _trying_ to attract every Resistance member within three miles?”

Faith gazes out the window at the Bliss fields, a reverential lilt to her voice. “The angels like the music.”

 _The angels aren't the only ones with ears._ Jacob eases his foot on the pedal, pulling up slowly just off the road. Faith swings her feet off the dashboard and hops out of the truck, the mischief on her face immediately replaced by a serene, honeyed smile. A smile for the Flock.

Jacob opens the driver’s seat door, waiting for the wolf to leave. It doesn’t move. He carefully pries it out of his jacket and drops it onto his lap, it sits back on its haunches and watches him curiously. He extends an arm and points to the ground outside of the truck. “Move.”

It stares blankly at him, tongue lolling out of its mouth.

He whistles sharply, jerking his extended arm outwards for emphasis. “ _Move.”_

It starts to move. Just when Jacob thinks it’s finally understood, it climbs back into his half-open jacket, licking at his beard.

“Fuckin’ Christ,” he curses under his breath, bringing an arm to the bottom of his jacket to scoop up the pup and step out of the truck. _Goddamn fucking wolf’s dim in the head_.

He slams the door a little too hard, making Faith jump where she waits for him in front of the truck. She spins around, tearing her gaze away from the Bliss fields and landing on Jacob’s precarious situation.

“Are you _sure_ you want to turn that little guy into a Judge?” Faith breaks her siren mask to smirk at him momentarily.

“This ‘ _little guy’_ might be a shitty Judge, that’s for sure,” Jacob sneers at her. Now that he has more room, he extracts the wolf from his jacket once more and roughly places it onto the ground. It whines softly, licking the toe of his boot. “Hopefully your chemists can get the serum right. The pup’s too soft, the serum should take care of that.”

He reaches into the truck bed and picks up a standard sniper rifle, slinging it over his shoulder. Wordlessly, he follows Faith, and a few of her Faithful escorts, further into the fields. His wolf follows him closely.

Faith stops by a large open tent where her Faithful and one VIP are taking inventory and loading barrels. They stutter when they see Faith, and then see Jacob, eyes widening at his presence.

“Sister Faith! I-It is a pleasure to be in your presence,” stammers the Vip, respectfully averting her Blissed eyes. “And with Brother Jacob— _alive_ , no less.”

“Yes, my brother’s… _resurrection_ had been kept secret from those outside The Father’s direct circle.” Faith smiles, clasping the VIP’s hand in her own. She leans in, eyes glinting as she lowers her voice in a theatrical, conspiratorial whisper. “But! Now that he’s out and about… _you_ are the first ones to know.”

 _Resurrection_. If word spreads like _that_ , the groveling from Faithful is going to be even more insufferable. He’s not some divine being, someone touched by God—that’s Joseph, and Jacob’s _happy_ it’s not him. He wants to garner respect from the power he builds around himself. Feared, respected, something not quite as blind as _revered_.

The Faithful exchange excited, honored looks among themselves. The VIP’s smile is blinding, Blissful. Without letting go of Faith’s hand, she looks to Jacob with faded, Blissed-over eyes. “It brings us great joy to see your return. God is truly on our side.”

Jacob tips his head, blank. “Sure.”

Faith continues chattering on with the VIP, following her as the VIP brings out reports, points to Bliss barrels being stocked. Jacob chooses to hang back, watching over like a sentinel. The wolf pup yawns at his feet. Faithful pass him by with quiet _Sir_ s of acknowledgement as they go about their routines. His eyes scan the Bliss fields, watching the brain-dead angels dig into soil.

He knows they all have differences in the way they run their regions—him, John, and Faith. Some things his younger siblings do, he doesn’t approve of, thinks of it as unnecessary or useless. But watching the way Faith works with her people here—not to mention the fact that Faith’s region is the only region that has yet to fall—makes Jacob’s chest swell with pride. She’s not his sister by blood, not the first Faith either, but he’s damn sure she’s made of the same resilience he and his brothers have.

A cacophony of explosions boom beyond the hills south of the fields, causing everyone in the area to coil up, hands flying to weapons. The wolf pup starts barking manically in the direction of the sounds. Too distant to be an immediate threat, but too close to ignore.

“Stay,” He commands the wolf, and for once, it obeys. It’s still too small, too underdeveloped to be useful in a potential firefight. He nods at Faith, who nods in return, and marches towards the hills. He holds his sniper rifle at the ready and starts barking orders to several Faithful in his path.

“You two, with me.” He points to two Faithful already standing at the edge of the fields. They start to pick out angels to bring along, but Jacob waves at them to stop. Angels are too rabid, too unpredictable. “Leave them. We’re scouting. Call the angels _if_ we have to engage.”

“Yes sir,” the Faithful closest to him says, switching the safety off her gun.

Jacob leads them up the slope, moving cautiously through the woods. Once they’re over the hill, Jacob can see blackened grass and burnt trees in the near distance. He signals for the Faithful at his flank to crouch down, to use the cover of the bushes as they steadily approach.

Through his scope, Jacob can see a wreckage of helicopters and fallen trees in flames. For a moment Jacob’s taken back to the mercenary encampment, to the helicopters blackening in flames as he holds the Deputy close in his lap. He shakes his head minutely, tossing the memory away as he confronts the here and now.

There are bodies littered around the area—of Eden’s Gate and Resistance alike. Someone steps out from behind the wreckage, sleeveless red shirt singed at the bottom, dirt and debris smearing his face, but generally in one piece. Definitely uninjured when Jacob watches him jump excitedly with an RPG hefted over his shoulder, shouting a hearty _YEAH THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!_ that can be heard from where he hides a hundred meters away.

“It’s one of those Drubmans, Brother Jacob.” The Faithful next to him whispers, peering through her binoculars.

Jacob recognizes him now, remembers that idiot from when he tried to join the Gate’s presence in his region. _What was his name? Henry? Harry? Hurk. Hurk Drubman Jr. That’s it._ “He seems to be alone.”

“Should we take him out, sir?” The other Faithful asks, an eagerness in his gruff voice. “He took down some of our people. It would be a hit to the Resistance too, I think. Heard he was a friend of that Deputy.”

Jacob remembers now, the bustle in his region when the Deputy and some idiot took one of the armored vehicles they’d kept after Drubman fled their Initiations. Drubman must have been that idiot. An idea creeps into his head, selfish and irresponsible, but promising— _oh_ , it could be promising.

“No.” Jacob orders. “We’ll let him go. Both of you head back to the fields, watch over my sister while she’s still there. Tell her I’ll meet her at her Gate.”

“Sir?”

“I think this idiot can lead me to a Resistance safe house.” _Lead me to the Deputy_. “Could be worthwhile. I’ll track him alone—easier to stay hidden that way.”

The Faithful exchange an uncertain glance, but obey. They fall back, returning to the Bliss fields while Jacob prowls ahead.

Drubman doesn’t attempt to be stealthy or cautious at all, and Jacob doubts he would actually be successful if he tried. Jacob tails him at a safe distance, stalking after Drubman as he meanders through the woods, a less-travelled road coming into view beyond the trees.

Drubman approaches an ATV, climbing on board. Jacob curses, thinking of a way he can keep up with the ATV as the engine starts. He hears the soft purr of the engine stutter and spit, Drubman kicks at its sides like he’s riding a horse. After a few moments of erratic sounds from the engine, it dies, lapsing Drubman in silence.

“Aw noooo,” he moans, scratching at the bandana around his head. He climbs off the ATV and gives one of the wheels a good kick of frustration. Jacob watches from behind a tree trunk as Drubman pulls out a radio, pressing the button with a stubby finger. “Uh… Hey y’all. My ride is dead, could anyone gimme a lift?”

Jacob swallows hard, waiting. Hopefully her voice will crackle through the speaker.

Instead, a gruff, gravelly voice replies, “Aw, Hurky, dude, I’d totally give you a ride but uh, Nick is mixing up some pretty sick drinks back at 8-Bit right now.”

“Whaaat,” Drubman whines into the receiver. “I want me some of that! ‘Kay, y’know what? I think I’m kinda closeby—I’mma walk.”

“See ya soon, cuz.”

Drubman pockets his radio and starts walking briskly down the dirt road.

Jacob follows him for a good twenty minutes, listening to him blabber to himself and pay _no_ attention to anything around him, wondering just how the fuck this idiot has managed to live so long. At one point Jacob saw a black bear begin to follow Drubman. Jacob shot five silenced pistol rounds into its rear and watched it flee. Drubman had no fucking clue.

Drubman cuts into the woods and jogs until he’s reached the treeline. Jacob stalking behind hearing him mutter _come on legs, you can do it!_ to himself as he runs. Jacob reaches the treeline soon after, stopping behind a boulder out of the woods and watches Drubman enter a bar by the road.

He can’t see the complete sign, the roof blocks out some of it from where Jacob is perched, but he can guess it says 8-Bit Bar. After Drubman enters through the backdoor, Jacob hears a muffled roar of greetings.

He stalks closer, trying to get a better look. He finds a good place by the side of the bar, he uses his scope to get a good look through the windows. He recognizes most of the faces he sees, each of them known to the Resistance and to the Gate in some way—Nick Rye, Drubman, Drubman’s mother, and Boshaw, who Jacob’s never met in person but has heard _a lot_ about. Guy’s a pyromaniac, apparently. Jacob hates him already.

He frowns through his scope. These are all people the Deputy’s known to be friends with—but where is she?

Then, the hairs on the back of Jacob’s neck stand, spine tingling with the sensation he’s being watched. He’s noticed too late, he can feel it in his gut. He looks away from his scope to see a bright green dot on his shoulder. _Shit_. He goes still, _no sudden movements_ , and watches stiffly as the light travels up and out of his line of sight. On his forehead, he presumes.

There’s a snap of twigs behind him, and a low growl. A dog walks around from behind Jacob, it’s got on a makeshift rope collar, the scruffy grey fur on its neck standing as it bares its teeth at him, ready to attack at any moment.

“Easy, there.” He says, lowering his rifle. He rises up slowly from where he knelt in the dirt. The mutt growls louder.

A woman emerges from the bushes on the other side of the road, sniper rifle still trained on him. Jacob recognizes her as well, from countless posters around the Valley. Grace Armstrong. She was a soldier, a deadly sniper like him—probably even better, from what he’s heard. She’s a good enough soldier to get the drop on him like that.

“Gun. Now.” She demands in a low, warning voice when she reaches him. Under the afternoon sun, the hat casts a menacing shadow over her eyes. “Or I’ll have Boomer take it from you.”

Jaw clenched, Jacob extends his sniper rifle out to her. With a gloved hand, she calmly takes it from him, the _don’t fuck with me_ expression never leaving her face.

“Turn around with your hands up.” Armstrong orders. Jacob does so. She snatches his sidearm from his thigh holster.

“I’m looking for the Deputy.” He says slowly, looking over his shoulder to glance at her. Trying his luck.

Armstrong stiffens and meets his gaze with a dark look, head tilted down curiously. She jerks her head towards the bar. “Walk.”

Jacob huffs, teeth grit as Armstrong shoves him towards 8-Bit Bar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> second update within the same week? some scenes just couldn't get out of my head (i'm sure yall guess which ones).  
> the bit with the wolf pup inspired by [this post](https://lowtldes.tumblr.com/post/178261041267/0ik4wa-okay-but-did-anyone-already-did-this), honestly, bless  
> thanks you guys for staying with me on this story even when i KEEP separating jacob and rook <3


	13. Chapter 13

Green. So much green. The field goes on for miles, to infinity. Rook walks for what feels like days, but the field never ends, the ground under her feet never changes. The sky is a shifting, stormy grey. She feels the clouds on her face, her feet planted firmly on the ground but she’s so, so close to the sky. She feels light, like a bird—hollow-boned and weightless. It’s dizzying, disorienting, maybe if she moves to much she’ll float away.

“How could you?”

Rook spins around, heels digging into wet soil. Jess is standing behind her, staring straight through Rook with wide, unblinking eyes.

“Jess?” Rook says, but no sound comes out of her mouth. Only a fleeting, aborted breath escapes her throat. She tries again, Jess’ name still dies on her tongue. She tries other words. _Can you hear me?_ No sound. _Why can’t I speak?_ Still nothing.

“How can you stand to be with him?” Jess whispers, nocking a flaming arrow onto her bow.

Rook turns her head, eyes following where Jess aims. Across the field, so far but so close, close enough that Rook can make out every little detail, stands Jacob, his back turned to the both of them.

She wants to shout _stop!_ or _watch out!_ but her voice fails yet again. Jess looses the fiery arrow and Rook squeezes her eyes shut.

When she opens her eyes again, the arrow’s suspended in place, right in front of Jess. Then the fire spreads along the arrow shaft, growing and growing. Then she hears Jacob chuckle, cold and detached. He still hasn’t turned around, but she hears the familiar crank of a music box, winding up in discordant notes.

The fire on the arrow bursts as _Only You_ echoes across the field, the sky suddenly red and thundering. Jess screams. Rook’s eyes widen, feet frozen in place, as the fire swallows up her friend. Jess screams and screams, fire spreading wildly, engulfing her until Rook can’t even see her face.

 _Stop it! Jacob, stop!_ Rook shouts, but hears nothing but Jess’ wavering cries.

“This is what I do, Deputy.” Jacob says, without turning around. Without moving a muscle. “You know this won’t end pretty.”

Rook looks back to her friend, only to scream soundlessly at the sight before her.

The grass is dead, scorched to black. Jess’ burnt up corpse lies still on the ground, compound bow next to her. Beyond her is another body. And another. And another. Burnt bodies of her friends scattered like flowers across the field. Sharky’s hoodie singed. Grace’s scarf burnt and swaying in the wind. Adelaide’s earrings reflecting distant flashes of lightning. Hurk’s bandana falling apart around the charred flesh of his head. Nick’s plane in pieces—his body a burnt, crumpled heap sticking out beneath it.

Distantly, somewhere out of sight, she hears a pained mewl from a cougar, an agonized groan from bear, a distressed whine from a dog.

And then Jacob’s standing in front of her, broad shoulders blocking the carnage from view. Rook’s holding his knife to his chest, the sharp tip pressed right above his heart.

“You should have done it.” He says, chest rumbling, sending small tremors up the blade. “You could’ve made things easier.”

Rook feels her anguish turn to anger, alight in her veins. She pulls the knife back, gearing up to strike straight into his chest, to bury it right to the hilt.

The tattoo on her chest burns.

She hears John Seed’s voice croon in her head, taunting. “There’s that _Wrath_.”

Rook wakes with a start.

Cold sweat on her grimy skin, eyes bulging, handcuff rattling on the pipe as she lurches forward into consciousness. Her heart like a stampede in her chest, sending tremors through her body.

“Fuck,” she chokes out. “What the fuck.”

“You were dreaming.” Not a question, despite the inquisitive lilt to Joseph Seed’s voice.

Rook slumps back against the wall, blinking hard and looking ahead to see Joseph standing above her, leaning back against the table’s edge. On top of the panic she’d woken with, she feels… good, nauseatingly good. Almost in the same way she felt in the beginning of her dream, a lightheadedness so disorienting.

“What—what the hell was that? What did you do? How… I know Faith can fucking control Bliss hallucinations or something but this was something—”

“Calm, Child. Relax.” Joseph’s solemn expression is a poor attempt to soothe. He tilts his head curiously in an owlish movement. “I’ve heard the Bliss can provoke dreams vivid like no other, especially in large doses. I have no control over them, neither does Faith—my Faith only works with hallucinations, suggestions. This… this may be the Bliss itself reading you.”

“So, like, a bad trip?” Rook asks. Though even when she’s awake, with how much Bliss Joseph’s drowning her in, the whole _everything_ feels like a bad trip. “You can’t keep this up for long—someone _will_ find me down here.”

“If that happens, you will take care of it.” Joseph says, reaching into his pocket. He pulls out something small—a box. It takes a moment for Rook to focus on it, but her eyes go wide when she realizes what it is.

“No—how did you—”

“Did you think Jacob had only _one_ music box?” Joseph holds the wind up music box delicately in his hand. “The Whitetails destroyed them when they took his region, but Jacob had left several here for safe keeping. He might not be training you and captive Whitetails anymore for his great Trojan Horse plan to destroy Eli Palmer, but that doesn’t mean all that conditioning should go to waste.”

“What if Ja—your family finds me down here?” Rook’s voice scratches at her throat. “You’d make me attack your own blood just to keep your secret?”

“The song conditions you to fight Resistance, those not of our cause. You cannot harm my Family or the Flock. But if your esteemed _Resistance_ comes for you…” He lifts a shoulder in a half-shrug and pockets the box.

Unease knots in Rook’s gut. That would be bad. _Train. Hunt. Kill. Sacrifice._ She’d tear her saviors apart without a second thought. She presses her lips together, dreading. It’ll be just like her nightmare.

Joseph carefully picks up something from the table—a glass of water, she didn’t notice it before—and approaches Rook. The edges of him blur and trail off him, Rook is seeing double.

She eyes the sweating glass hungrily in his hand. She hasn’t had anything to eat or drink—nothing to consume but Bliss since she’d gotten herself stuck here. She hasn’t had access to a bathroom either, not even a fucking bucket. Not that she’s needed to shit or something, thank god, but she’s pretty sure that underneath all this Bliss, she’s pissed her pants. At least the smell of Bliss overpowers the stench of day-old urine. Maybe it’s even washed it out of her jeans with how often she gets soaked in the glistening drug.

Joseph extends the glass out to her and she nearly snatches it out of his hands. He squats down close, observing her as she chugs the glass of ice water, uncaring for how it spills on her. She’s sure that this isn’t _just_ water—that there’s Bliss in it the same way Bliss has contaminated the Henbane River, but she’s too thirsty to care about it. It’s refreshing, a comforting coldness on her tongue and trailing down her dry throat. She empties the glass in seconds.

“You lied.” Joseph says, prying the empty glass from her clammy hand. “Granted, your feigned ignorance was clear from the start when I asked you if Jacob knew you were alive—but now I know for sure. I think John might know something of it as well. You should have seen the way he goaded Jacob.”

Rook just stares back into his shifting, murked eyes. She glares, trying to place which Joseph of the two overlapping images of him she sees in front of her is the _real_ one, the tangible one. The thought that he’s within reach—that he hasn’t bat an eye at her free arm draped limply across her lap—creeps so slowly, so quietly under the weighted blanket of Bliss swaddling her brain that she almost misses it. Her fingers twitch.

 _Don’t hurt him_ , her thoughts seem to say, sounding an awful lot like Faith’s and her own mingled together—Blissed. _Let go of your Wrath_. Her teeth clench. Soon she’ll sound like the fucking Marshal when she saw him all those weeks ago—dull, dopey, and obedient.

Like hell she’s gonna let that happen.

“How long has Jacob known you’re alive? He knew you were here. My brother thinks he can hide his emotions from us, but I _know_ him. Do _you?_ ” Joseph asks quietly. “If you think you can scheme with Jacob, drag him away from our Project with whatever happened between the two of you, you’re mistaken. You may have settled a crack into his resolve, but you cannot sway someone like him so easily.”

“No.” The word escapes her lips out of their own volition. “I didn’t think of any of that. The only ‘scheming’ was when I found him here—he wanted to know what you’ve been doing down here, he wanted to know why you were passing on Bliss to outsiders. He suspects you.”

“Jacob is not coming for you.”

Rook ignores the jab. “You can’t hide this forever.”

“Perhaps. A secret such as this… it could hurt the Project if unveiled. It _must_ be done, I will gladly shoulder this on my own to protect my Family.” Joseph frowns slightly, voice quivering on the edge of mania. “I cannot have my brothers and sister look at me differently. They would—at least Jacob and John would—if they were to find out about this... Their faith is strong, but this is _my_ burden to bear. A precaution that could potentially shatter their faith in me, in the Collapse.”

“You’re crazy.” Rook rasps, spiteful. She understands, she does—but similar to how she feels for every Seed, she doesn’t agree with his methods. She hangs on tight to the spite she feels, lets it simper under her skin, lets it roll over the Bliss. “Fucking crazy.”

She hears the pads of Joseph’s fingers squeak against the empty glass as his hand tightens around it. A loathing flashes in his eyes. “It seems you need another dose, Child.”

Rook sneers and lashes out at him. It takes all of her energy to fight the encroached need to be _docile_ that the Bliss imbues. Her free hand surges forward and claws at Joseph, knocking into the bottom rim of his aviators and dragging down—fingernails tearing skin, drawing blood.

A shallow scratch across his cheek. It’s not much. It’s not anything, really. It’s just _defiance_ —the only thing she has left to cling to in this situation.

Rook smirks, slumping back tiredly against the concrete wall as Joseph bolts up and flinches back. He carelessly sets the glass back down on the table behind him, the bottom skidding on the tabletop, and gingerly raises his fingers to his cheek. He winces slightly at the sting, examining the bit of blood on his fingertips.

“Every slight.” He whispers disdainfully with the smallest shake of his head, wiping the blood off onto his black waistcoat.

The triumph falls off her face when Joseph turns to pick up a Bliss barrel.

 

-

 

There’s music playing inside the bar—The Clash, Jacob recognizes, it’s Resistance radio. He’s sure it’s from the little speaker blaring on the bar top, but Jacob swears he hears an audible record scratch the second he steps through the door.

But the music’s still playing, louder now that all conversation has died. Boshaw drops the highball glass he was sipping from, not a single person in the bar paying attention to the shattered, citrusy mess at his feet.

The barrel of a gun nudges at his spine. Begrudgingly, Jacob follows Armstrong’s silent order to keep moving and steps out of the doorway, making room for her to step inside. The dog— _Boomer_ —runs through the door after her, disappearing somewhere into the backroom.

“Ho-ly _shit_ , is that— _he’s alive?_ ” Drubman exclaims, breaking the thick silence. “Uh, I-I’m not the only one seeing him standing next t’Grace, right?”

“Afternoon.” Jacob greets flatly, hands still in the air.

“You _motherfucker_ ,” Nick Rye snarls. He slams the steel cocktail shaker onto the bar top, pulling an AR-CL out from the shelves underneath. Rye points the barrel at him, striding out from behind the bar until he’s just a few feet in front of Jacob. “Where the fuck is she? Where the fuck is your _sick_ family keeping my friend?”

Jacob starts to speak. “I—”

“Why aren’t we killing this guy?” Boshaw exclaims, fury on his face, interrupting whatever Jacob was about to say. Suddenly a shotgun’s pointed right at his face, so close that Jacob can smell the gunpowder.

The Drubmans burst into action with exclamations of their own, aiming their guns at him as well. Jacob doesn’t move, doesn’t back away to the array of weapons jabbed up at his face.

It’s Armstrong who steps in, her gun still pointed at Jacob, but she looks to the others. “ _Wait_. He’s useful to us.”

“Useful to us _dead_ , honey, sure.” Drubman’s mother— _Adelaide_ , he recalls from the Drubman Marina posters in Faith’s region—says lowly, glaring at Jacob, hooped earrings swaying as she shakes her head.

“Grace is right,” says Rye, tense posture easing slightly, but the scowl’s still on his face. “He might know where the Deputy is.”

 _That_ gets Jacob’s attention. They don’t know where she is. _Then where the fuck did she go?_ Jacob bites his tongue, pissed that he risked getting himself into this situation for nothing. She’s not here.

“‘Kay so we make him talk and _then_ we kill him, right? Right?” Boshaw adds, backing up from where they’ve all crowded Jacob, but not lowering his shotgun.

“You’re not getting shit from me pointing all these guns in my face,” Jacob near growls, the unspoken demand clear in the vigor of his voice. He juts his chin out towards the other veteran in the room. “Armstrong here already disarmed me, so how ‘bout we have a civil conversation, hm?”

Adelaide lowers her rifle, putting a hand on her hip. “Well. He’s got a point. I got rope if we wanna tie him up instead.”

“Fine. Tie him up, then we’ll talk.” Rye lowers his rifle as well, sighing heavily. He frowns at Adelaide. “Y’just carry rope everywhere with ya?”

Adelaide’s lips spread into a smirk, eyes glinting.

It’s in that moment Jacob remembers _everything_ he’s heard about Adelaide Drubman. Jesus, he hopes someone else in this room would tie the ropes instead of her.

Boshaw swallows hard. “That’s c-cool, Aunt Addie.”

Drubman grimaces, whining like an embarrassed teen. “ _Momma._ ”

“Lord.” Jacob hears Armstrong mutter next to him. She shoves Jacob forward. “Just tie him up.”

Jacob grits his teeth as he’s manhandled, something holding back his urge to snap attack people for touching him. Perhaps it’s the fact that he’s outnumbered and he knows it. Perhaps it’s the fact that he knows it would hurt the Deputy if he hurt any of them. Jacob doesn’t contemplate which one it is. He sits in the chair Armstrong shoves him into, making himself comfortable as Adelaide winds rope around his torso and the chair’s back.

Armstrong and Boshaw keep their guns trained on him when Adelaide leans down behind him and starts to tie up the rope ends.

“You know,” Adelaide begins in a sultry, lilting voice. A little _too_ close behind him as she tugs the ropes. “I’ve always wanted to tie up one of you Seed boys, preferably without an audience, and with less clothes, but I don’t mind.”

“I’d rather you keep your fucking hands to yourself, Drubman.”

Rye runs a tired hand down his face. “Mrs. Drubman, could ya just… not do _that_ right now.”

“No need to call him _‘that,’_ darlin’. He has a name. Though, sadly, I don’t think he’ll let me _do_ him.” Adelaide replies playfully, tightening the ropes until Jacob can’t freely move his shoulders. “And Nicky, honey, how many times do I have to tell you to just call me Addie?”

Hysterically, in the undercurrent of his thoughts, Jacob wonders how the fuck these people have gotten anything done.

“Please just call me Nick, Mrs. Drubman, _please_.”

Adelaide chuckles, letting go of the ropes secured around Jacob. Before she leaves his space, she claps two hands onto his shoulders and squeezes, whispering loudly, “Just tell me if you want ‘em _tighter_ , hon.”

Armstrong looks at Jacob with pity.

Adelaide steps away from him, settling to lean against the bar, hips jutting out. Jacob rolls his eyes. Looking back at the group in front of him, everyone’s lowered their guns but keeps them in their hands. Except Armstrong. She keeps her sidearm pointed at him. A precaution.

“Right.” Boshaw says, walking back to the bar top and turning the volume on the radio down. Broken glass crunches beneath him when he accidentally steps on his spilled cocktail. “Shit. Ah, anyway, interrogation time.”

“Where the fuck’s the Deputy?” Rye fires at him immediately, a frown hard on his face. “What the hell are you sick Peggie fucks doing to her?”

“When did you last see your Deputy?” Jacob asks slowly, baring his teeth. Staying aloof. He intends to find out everything they know about her first.

“Naw, don’t fucking play games with us,” Rye shakes his head, barking out a mirthless laugh. He steps forward and grabs Jacob’s jacket collar, the chair scrapes against the floor as Rye drags him and inch or so forward and leans down so they’re face to face to face. “That’s one of my best goddamn friends you’re hiding. Now I’m not a fucking barbarian like y’had your folks up in the mountains, but I ain’t above hurting you if you don’t start talking.”

Jacob refuses to give. “When. Did you. Last. See her?”

He faintly hears _smarmy asshole_ muttered from Boshaw by the bar.

Rye steels his gaze for a moment, eyes blazing with anger, the edge of his cap bumps Jacob’s forehead. His other hand raises, balled into a trembling fist. Then Rye snarls and lets go of Jacob, turning away and striding to the bar.

“Nick, you good?” Drubman asks, frowning after his friend.

Rye waves him away without turning around, rifling around with some bottles and setting a short tumbler glass onto the bar top. He grabs a bottle of whiskey off the shelf and pours a shot into it, then brings the glass to his lips and throws his head back to down it. He sets the empty glass down hard on the bar top.

“Dude…” Boshaw starts awkwardly.

“I just—” Rye makes an aborted sound, setting both hands on the bar top, head hanging down, _Rye & Sons Aviation_ hat hiding his face. “I just need a second.”

 _Weak_ , Jacob thinks, watching Nick Rye attempt to compose himself.

“I don’t know how y’all can do it,” Rye says, finally looking up at everyone, eyes sad. “Be the fuckin’ bad guy.”

Armstrong’s shoulders sag. “You don’t have to do this, Nick.”

“Yeah,” Boshaw smiles weakly. “We understand if you wanna leave, bud.”

“I’m just—so angry, and _worried_.” Rye says miserably. He narrows his eyes at Jacob, who keeps his expression blank and unimpressed. “I wanna fuckin’ hurt you. Like you’re probably hurting Dep. Beat your smug ugly mug to a pulp to get you talkin’, but I _can’t_. We’re—we’ve all killed people here and shit but I just—” he shakes his head, “—I just can’t be cruel just to get my things to go my way. I’m asking you nicely, here, you goddamn monster. _Please_ , what the hell have you done to our friend?”

“And just so we’re clear,” Armstrong says, looking Jacob dead in the eyes. “Nick might not be able to hurt you, but I am. So I suggest you stay truthful.”

The bar is quiet for a breath, Jacob watches Rye, feeling expectant eyes from everyone else on him.

In that moment, Jacob sees a flash of movement in the doorway left of the bar, right under the restroom sign. He doesn’t say anything about it.

“Just answer the question,” Jacob says simply, shrugging the best he can against the ropes. “Answer the question and I’ll talk. When did you last see the Deputy?”

Adelaide scoffs. “He’s no quitter, I’ll give him that.”

“Promise I’ll talk.” Jacob tilts his head back, raising a brow. “If y’don’t know where she is, what’s the harm in telling me where you saw her last? Retrace your steps, _bud._ ”

“Ugh,” Boshaw scowls. “You should hit him, Grace.”

“No, no—fine, we’ll fucking talk.” Rye concedes with a heavy sigh. “I think—yeah, I saw her last. She didn’t go back to you again, right Grace?”

Armstrong nods, barely moving. “Yeah. Last I saw her she killed this guy—Feeney—then she left to go see you and Kim again.”

“That ain’t far, she only radioed me.” Boshaw grumbles, picking at the little dish of peanuts on the bar top. He pops one into his mouth.

“Yeah, last I saw her she was with me an’ Kim.” Rye nods. “She swung by our place in Holland Valley, you know where it is, near John’s fuckin’ ranch. Then she left. To Joseph’s island. Said she’d be back later that day. It’s been two days. Radio silence.”

So nobody’s seen her since the Compound. Jacob wonders if he was the last one to see her, inside his cabin. Did something happen to her when she tried to leave? Or did she just run off and try to tackle whatever it is she found, alone, by herself? Knowing the Deputy, it really could be either of those things. Jacob wills away the worry twisting his gut.

“Now your turn, you ginger dickhead.” Boshaw sneers, picking up a peanut and tossing it at Jacob.

The peanut bounces off Jacob’s temple, effectively spiking his anger. He glares icily at him, nostrils flaring—it wipes the cajoling smirk and drains the color right off Boshaw’s face. Jacob huffs and shakes his head.

“Could I get some of that whiskey?” he asks.

A collective chorus of, “ _No._ ”

“You said you’d talk, Seed.” Armstrong says, voice low. “Now _talk_.”

Jacob pauses, licks his lips. “I don’t know where she is.”

“Let’s just kill him now, then!” Boshaw says eagerly.

“I don’t know where she is, but I can help you.”

“ _Don’t_ lie.” Rye warns.

“He might be telling the truth,” Armstrong sighs. “When I caught him outside, he said he was looking for the Deputy.”

“I believe him.” Another voice says. Heads turn to see a woman step into the doorway Jacob saw movement in earlier. Her face is scratched, some of it obscured by a hood. She carries a bow in her hand. Jacob knows who she is, he had wanted posters of her posted around the Whitetail Mountains alongside Eli’s and the Deputy’s.

“Jess!” Boshaw exclaims. “How long’ve you been there?”

“Long enough.”

“You believe him?” Armstrong reiterates, brow raised from under her hat.

“It’s the truth.” Jacob juts his chin out to point at Drubman, standing by the window. “Fuckin’ followed that idiot over there hoping he’d lead me to her.”

“Hey!” Drubman looks hurt.

Rye casts a hopeless glance towards Drubman. “Come on, dude. Seriously? You didn’t even notice?”

“I got a bear off his trail too, your welcome.” Jacob adds with a huff.

Drubman mumbles a quiet, confused _uh thanks_ as Jess Black removes an arrow from her quiver and moves straight for Jacob. She stops in front of him, holding the arrow right under his chin, the point disappearing into his beard.

“Now why come all this way to hunt her down, asshole?” Black questions, voice as sharp as the arrow point digging into him. There’s a strange look in her eyes, like underneath the fury there’s something curious, something challenging him as they study him.

“She knows something—information I need. We were supposed to meet to brief, but she was a no show.” Jacob answers truthfully, carefully. He works his jaw, he wants to correct her, clarify that he’s not _hunting_ her, but that would lead to too many questions. Questions he doesn’t want to answer.

“She _agreed_ to meet _you?_ ” Rye chimes in, confused.

Black pushes the arrow some more, and Jacob hisses when he feels skin break. The challenge, the inquisition, is clearer on her expression now. “And why _else?_ ”

A sinking feeling creeps into him when he realizes she _knows_. The Deputy told her. _Shit_. Just how _much_ did she tell Black is the question now.

“Whaddaya mean ‘ _why else_ ’?” Boshaw inquires, scratching his beard. “What else is he hidin’?”

Jacob steels Jess Black’s gaze, keeping his walls up. He’s acutely aware of the arrow that’s going to kill him if he doesn’t tell her what she wants to hear, but he doesn’t know if he can. To admit a Weakness such as _that_ in front of anyone, let alone a room full of his enemies.

“If you’re asking, then you already know why,” he grates out, mouth suddenly dry. He tears his gaze away, staring blankly into a spot on the floor, clenching his jaw.

He feels Black’s gaze burn into him for a few more seconds. A thin stream of blood warmly rolls down his throat.

“Un-fucking-believable. Un- _fucking-_ believable.” The arrow leaves his punctured skin. Black turns away and shakes her head as she slips it back into her quiver. “Yeah, he’s telling the truth. He’s really lookin’ for her.”

“Uh Jess, what the fuck was that?” Rye frowns.

“Does this have to do with the fight you and the Deputy had a few days ago?” Armstrong asks Black.

“You knew about that, huh?” Black huffs, crossing her arms and scowling.

“She didn’t tell me. She didn’t have to.” Armstrong shrugs. She gestures to Jacob with a nod. “What does this have to do with _him_ , though?”

 _Fuck_. He doesn’t want to listen to this. Doesn’t want to _be_ here for this. Jacob contemplates standing, hunched with the chair still tied to him, and just walking out of the bar. He also contemplates breaking the chair he’s in somehow to free himself, and just killing everyone in the room. Paint the walls with their blood... then have the Deputy never look at him again. _Fine. Not an option._

“He was with her that week we thought she was dead,” says Black.

“Oh, shit.” Boshaw’s eyebrows shoot up, disappearing into his hat.

“Yeah—and that’s not all of it—” No. “—after everything this _monster’s_ done, everyone he’s hurt—” _No._ “—she… _she_ —”

“Stop talking.” Jacob growls.

Black points accusingly at him, with so much force her hood almost slips off her head. “ _You shut the fuck up._ ”

“ _Oh_ ,” Armstrong says softly, taking a step back in astonishment. “Damn.”

“Oh?” Rye parrots, looking frantically between Black and Armstrong. “ _‘Oh’_ what?”

Jacob starts to fight his bonds, the chair creaking as he pushes himself against the rope. “Untie me _now_ , and I’ll leave without _killing all of you_.”

Drubman’s mother seems to catch on, like all the fucking women in the room can communicate telepathically. She gasps loudly, hands falling from her hips and clapping against her lap. “ _No!_ She _didn’t!_ My goodness— _Jacob Seed,_ huh? Damn, our girl knows how to get ‘em.”

“Why’z everyone _oh_ -ing? Gotta be honest I wasn’t really paying attention so what’s happening?” Drubman pipes in.

“Holy shit, y’all fucked, didn’t ya?” Boshaw says, surprise on his face shifting into an elated grin.

Rye _chokes_.

Drubman gasps, pointing at Black. “Oh my god, Jess! You and—”

“Not _me_ , you fuckin’ idiot! The Deputy!”

“Nice.” Adelaide smiles dreamily.

Jacob looks wildly to Armstrong, to Rye. “Cut me loose.”

Rye grimaces when he looks at him. “The… you… you’re so much older—”

“ _Nice_.” Adelaide repeats with a deeper, wistful sigh.

“God, of _course_ , you’re enjoying this.” Black glares at the older woman from across the room. “Yeah, sure, it’s not like all the people he’s killed and kept in cages _matter!_ ”

“Oh relax, I’m not saying _that_.” Adelaide scoffs, one hand twirling around a loose strand of blonde hair as she _drags_ her eyes up Jacob’s tied up, struggling body. “I just have eyes, darlin’.”

“Cut me loose _right now_.” Jacob seethes to everyone— _anyone_ —in the room. “Or I’ll break this chair.”

“Give me _one_ good reason why I shouldn’t cut you to pieces, Seed.” Black snarls at him, pulling out a long knife. Jacob stills as she presses its sharp point against his cheekbone. “Why we shouldn’t drag you outside and burn you alive like your _Cook_ did to my parents? Because my friend _cares_ about you?”

Jacob shuts his eyes for a moment, exhaling deeply from his nose, practically blowing out steam.

“I’m most likely the last person who saw your Deputy,” Jacob says in a low, controlled voice. He sits up straighter in the rickety chair, shifting against the ropes. The slow crawl of dread makes it into Jacob’s racing thoughts, tasting bitter in his mouth. Someone has her. “In Joseph’s Compound. If none of you have heard from her since… then she’s probably still there. She has to be. And _I’m_ the only one here who can get in without risking my life.”

Rye steps out from behind the bar and approaches Black slowly, as one approaches a wounded animal. “Jess… if he’s right about where she is, He has a point.”

Black is seething, Jacob can feel the anger radiating from her in waves. “ _If_ he’s right.”

“Y’said so yourself,” Jacob looks directly at Rye’s uncertain expression, “my _sick_ family’s got her.”

And it only took Jacob a room full of Resistance idiots to come to that hunch. Christ, he’s getting slow.

“And if you’re wrong?” Armstrong asks calmly, but her eyes narrow at him.

“Then you’ll still have me out there looking for her too,” he shrugs, leaning into Black’s knife, goading. “With the resources I have as a Herald… your choice if y’wanna pass up on that.”

“Plus Jake’n’Bake here is like, uh, the Deputy’s boyfriend now—so I’m just saying, Jess, if you kill him you’re gonna have to explain that to her.”

Jacob’s eye twitches. “ _I’m not_ —”

“ _Sharky_ , this isn’t a joke.”

“Look, Grace, I’m _just_ sayin’... like let’s be real, here.”

If Jacob stays tied to this chair any longer, he might just start _praying_. The Collapse could come kill them all at this very second and he’ll have peace and quiet. He might not be able to face the repercussions with the Deputy of killing everyone here, but for a moment he considers the idea once again. Cut out Boshaw’s tongue and staple it to his face right before he kills him. It’s more John’s style, but the situation sure as fuck calls for it.

Black pulls the knife away from his scarred cheek, her glare still fierce. “Fine. We’ll let you go. You’ll fucking report to us every damn day.”

Jacob’s shoulders tighten. He doesn’t _take_ orders, he gives them. But he’s in no position to argue. “I’ll inform you _when_ I find something.”

“Fine.” Black’s expression twitches. Then she pulls her fist back at lightning speed and slams it square into Jacob’s face. His head snaps to the side, following the violent arc of Black’s swing, colors swimming in his vision. She hits _hard_. Harder than any punch the Deputy’s thrown at him.

He hears Drubman whoop in excited joy. “Yeah, Jess! Badass!”

Then the ropes are cut. They fall off him and the chair, pooling in pieces on the ground.

“Jess, honey, I was hoping to get that rope back in one piece.”

“Shut up, Adelaide.”

Jacob stands, turning his head back to facing forward as he massages his throbbing jaw with one hand. Something warm and moist collects on his lip, in his mouth. He’s bleeding. He rolls his shoulders, spitting saliva and blood onto the floor.

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, ignoring the sting of his lip, and glowers at Black. “That really necessary?”

Black cracks her knuckles. “That’s not even _close_ to what you deserve, you sack of dogshit.”

Jacob scoffs and looks to Armstrong, fists clenching. “I’d like my weapons back.”

“Not yet.” She says flatly, tone final.

“Swear to us first,” Rye says, stepping around Black to stand in front of Jacob. He sticks out his hand. “You’ll tell us what you learn about Dep the _second_ you hear about it. I fuckin’ mean it, Seed. As soon as goddamn possible.”

He wants to bare his teeth and shove Rye away. Wants to throttle all of them and tell them to fucking lay off him because they’re not the _only_ ones worried. Wants to leave them in the dark when he finds the Deputy—hold her close and tell her that _he_ was the only one out there looking for her, that _he_ was the only one who was hit by her disappearance. Just him, _only_ him. But she’s too smart to buy into that shit.

So Jacob swallows his Pride, lumbers forward so he’s at least looking _down_ at Rye when he mutters an agreement and shakes his hand. He squeezes his grip hard enough that Rye recoils and glares at him.

“You’re an arrogant fucking asshole,” Rye mutters darkly. “I dunno what Dep sees in you.”

If Jacob’s being honest with himself, he doesn’t fucking know either. But he’s not about to admit that.

“And I thought John Seed was the arrogant douchenozzle Po-Po was gonna fuck,” Boshaw muses, eyebrows knitting together in thought.

“I’m leaving.” Jacob says flatly.

Armstrong and Black speak to him at once, words overlapping.

“I’ll take you to a car.”

“Hope you get hit by a truck.”

 

-

 

The sky is glowing with the beginning of sunset. The road outside 8-Bit Bar is deserted, not a single sound of a rumbling engine in the near distance. Armstrong leads Jacob past the billboard advertising the bar, where a Humvee, a tacky orange pickup, and an ATV are parked off the side of the road.

“You’re just gonna hand me the keys to one of your rides?” Jacob breaks the comfortable, _slightly_ uncomfortable, silence.

“We snag some abandoned vehicles off the road all the time,” Armstrong shrugs, walking over to the Humvee. “We get here on our own rides, but we leave a few parked by the bar just in case.”

“Don’t see your rides anywhere, you hiding them in the woods or somethin’?”

Armstrong only replies with a frosty half-smile, eyes hidden under the tilt of her crosshairs cap. Jacob follows her, tense at the fact that he’s out in the open completely unarmed, and stops right where Armstrong stands in front of the door to the driver’s seat.

She glances inside the window, then back at him. “Door’s unlocked, keys are inside. You’re good to go.”

“My guns?” Jacob raises a brow, raising one hand and motioning for her to give them.

Armstrong slides his sniper rifle from Joseph’s Compound off her shoulder and extends it out to him. He takes it in both his hands, but her gloved hand doesn’t let go of the gun, holding it in the space between them.

“One more thing,” she says, voice dropping to a low, warning tone. Without removing her cold, dead gaze from Jacob she swiftly pulls out his sidearm from one of her holsters with one hand and switches the safety off.

It happens fast, one second she’s handing him his weapons, and next the barrel of his own gun is flattening the bottom of his beard, pressed right underneath his chin. It stings lightly at the small prick Black’s arrow made in his skin.

Jacob only has time to growl. “Armstrong, you better—”

“If you go against your word, I will kill you. Forget about this war—you’ll become my sole target.” Her face is blank, expressionless. So neutral it’s as if she’s merely commenting on the weather. But there’s a vigor in the reserved tone of her voice, a vigor that reminds Jacob that, just like him, Armstrong probably lost track of her body count long before the events in Hope County. “If you hurt the Deputy—if you hurt my friend, you better make sure she hurts you back. You better make sure she puts you six feet under. Because if she doesn’t, I will. I won’t take my time, like how Jess probably wants to when it comes to killing you, I’ll just _pull the trigger_. You deserve to die slowly, you do. But you won’t get a fight from _me_. You won’t even get the chance to notice me before your corpse hits the ground. Do you get me?”

The barrel of his gun is cold against his skin. “I get you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if anyone wants to know, [this](https://i.imgflip.com/12ic6x.jpg) is how i pictured jacob stepping into 8-bit bar  
> we getting closer to endgame yall!!  
> just gonna plug my [tumblr](http://lowtldes.tumblr.com) in here again if anyone wants to swing by and talk, or also just because i need more people to follow on my dash  
> thank you for reading the chapter <3


	14. Chapter 14

“That’s a nasty bruise, Brother.”

“Hello to you too, Faith,” Jacob says, craning his neck to look around the corridors of the bunker he walks through.

Faith’s Gate is full of flowers. There are so many bursting colors that Jacob wonders how much time is devoted to just the upkeep. Idly, he remembers the daffodils that line the windowsill of his cabin back at Joseph’s Compound. He wonders if anyone’s watering them in his and Faith’s absence. Probably not. Faith herself was already pushing it when she’d waltz into his cabin without his permission, none of their Flock would have the stones to even open the door while he’s away.

“Did you find that safehouse you were looking for?”

Jacob looks at her plainly, the bruise from Black’s fist throbbing dully. “No.”

“Did you find anything else?”

“No.”

Faith squints at him. They stare each other down for a moment, then Faith stops a passing Faithful with a gentle hand brushing along the woman’s arm. “Get an ice pack for Brother Jacob’s poor face, will you?”

“Of course, Sister Faith.” The woman nods and hurries away.

Faith then turns her attention back to Jacob, tiptoeing over to him across the cool metal floor and excitedly pulling at his jacket sleeve. “Come. I’d like you to meet my new angel.”

Jacob lets her pull him along, the two of them weaving through busy Faithful and going down several flights of stairs. The whole bunker has traces of Bliss floating around. Bliss flowers are woven in with regular flowers hanging from walls and furniture, and when they descend the stairs the smell gets stronger. He feels the lightness of it, sees particles floating in the air.

Someone at the top of the staircase calls for them, followed by the sound of boots pattering down metal steps. The two siblings turn around to see the woman Faith had stopped earlier, out of breath and hurrying down the stairs.

“Your ice pack, Brother Jacob.” The woman huffs, cheeks red.

Jacob accepts it with a nod, pressing the soothing cold along his jaw and busted lip.

“Thank you, sister.” Faith smiles, grazing a hand along the woman’s heated face. The woman smiles back, and with a respectful nod she leaves them, going back up the stairs at a much more sedate pace than before.

“Whad’ya do with my wolf, Faith?” Jacob asks, continuing down the stairs.

“He’s with my chemists a few levels up. I already told them you wanted the Judge Serum recreated and they got to work,” she says airily, tugging his sleeve again when he moves towards the next flight of stairs. “No, not there. This way!”

Faith steers Jacob through a cramped bunker doorway, leading into a surveillance office of sorts. One of Faith’s Chosen stand in the room, coffee mug in hand as he busies himself. A pile of notes lies scattered on the desk. There is only one TV screen mounted on the wall, hooked up to a laptop running a security program. Next to the screen is a door—metal, sturdy, and secure.

The moment the Chosen sees Faith and Jacob, his eyes widen in surprise.

“Sister Faith, hello! And you come with Brother Jacob… hello, sir.”

“Could you excuse us for a moment, brother Nichols?” Faith says, her smile serene.

The Chosen bows his head and ducks out of the room, coffee sloshing dangerously close the rim of his mug as he hurries.

“What’s so special about your new zombie?” Jacob asks, squinting at the TV screen. The image isn’t clear, static and low resolution hindering Jacob from getting a better look at the angel. From what he can tell, they’ve got the same brain-dead slouch all the other angels do—but this one isn’t in the white clothes the Gate makes them wear. They’re still in regular clothes, all black. A surgical mask covers half their face.

Faith pouts at the use of _zombie_. “ _Angel_ , Brother.”

“Yeah. What’s got you so excited about ‘em?”

“Come and see,” she says, smirking as she takes a key off the table. She slides it into the door and twists, the metal groans slightly as she pulls it open.

Jacob’s stoic expression withers into mild disgust as clouds of Bliss flood out of the open door. Faith wants him to _go inside?_ He’s not even in front of the door and he can feel the Bliss clouds fucking with him already.

“After you.” Jacob tips his head toward the door.

Faith rolls her eyes and gracefully spins on her tiptoes till she’s facing the entrance. He hears her giggle when she disappears into the Bliss-filled room.

“Don’t worry, Jacob!” she calls from inside, voice bouncing off the acoustics of the room. “It’s not enough Bliss to ruin you. It’s just enough to keep my little angel happy.”

 _Says the girl who’s immune to the damn drug_. Jacob’s chest heaves with a long-suffering sigh. He clenches the ice pack in his fist, like a makeshift stress ball, pressing it against his face and steps into the Bliss clouds.

The room clears a few steps in, cool clouds dispersing from his face. The walls of the room are shrouded with Bliss, with just a single floodlight beaming out of a corner. It’s enough light to cut through the clouds, washing a stark overexposure onto Faith and the angel standing in the center. Faith’s white dress looks like it has an ethereal glow in the harsh light, the beam haloing the outline of her silhouette. The Bliss fumes Jacob is exposed to just add to the effect—the magic Faith creates when she’s in her domain.

He approaches Faith and the angel, each step feeling lighter and lighter, the ice pack pressed against his face feeling colder like a menthol spreading, channeling through the crisscrosses of his scarred skin. Faith’s hands flutter around the angel’s arms, shoulders, and face—always moving in featherlight touches, dainty fingers moving like butterflies.

She regards the angel with a hooded, somber expression, her eyes hidden by long lashes fanning down. When she speaks, her voice is higher, tone reverential and melodic. “This one fought hard in the beginning, but in the end... not even the Deputy could steal him away from Eden.”

Now that he’s closer, Jacob recognizes the man—no, the angel—leaning into Faith’s touch. The Bliss slows the realization, toys with the synapses in his head making the connection, but Jacob recognizes the U.S. Marshal just as Faith pulls down the surgical mask with her index finger.

The skin around his mouth is dry and crusted with old saliva and Bliss. His parted lips are pale and bloodless, yellowed teeth poking out. The Marshal’s vest is gone, otherwise Jacob would have recognized him the moment he saw him on the TV Screen in the other room.

“Marshal,” Jacob says, testing. He snaps his fingers in front of the angel’s face. Faith giggles.

The angel who was the U.S. Marshal only shudders, staring blankly with milky white eyes into an empty space over Faith’s head. He twitches erratically, breaths getting more ragged. Faith pulls the mask back up to cover the dilapidated lower half of his face. The cloth of the mask caves in and out, every inhale suctioning it against his sickly mouth and puffing it back out in fitful breaths.

“Good work.” Jacob hums thoughtfully. “Joseph’ll be pleased to hear about this.”

It’s a big loss for the Resistance. Even if they did get the Marshal back, he’s too far gone to be any help to them. No one from the outside is coming to save the Resistance now. This war has been contained within the County since the Reaping began—but the loss of the Marshal is symbolic, a wake-up call to those who still think their government cares about them.

Would the Deputy be mad? Jacob pushes away the thought, hissing when he accidentally presses the ice pack too hard against his stinging lip. He shouldn’t be caring about what she might think or feel right now, he just has to know she’s in one piece.

“I want your opinion on something,” Faith says, her hand finding Jacob’s sleeve again and tugging him out of the containment room.

“Go on.”

“I want the Resistance to know that their Marshal belongs to me now. I don’t want just _word_ to get around, passed from ear to ear by the few who have seen firsthand. I want them _all_ to see.”

“I’m guessing you want something more eloquent than a suggestion of just dropping him at the Jail’s front door?”

Faith closes the door to the angel’s room with a _tsk_. “Maybe I should have asked John. He _did_ nail those dead crows to the church for the Deputy’s Atonement, after all. Hmm, I wonder what sort of theatrics he can brew.” She pauses, eyes tilting upwards in thought. “But I _do_ like that idea actually. It’ll be like a gift! I’d love to see Tracey—the Resistance members' faces when they think they’ve _saved_ someone, only for them to be mine. They can keep him, even.”

“You’ve done right by your region so far,” Jacob says gruffly. “More than John and I can say about our regions. I think this is up to you, Faith.”

Faith purses her lips, still thinking, but she looks happy with his compliment. “Now where did my people put the Marshal’s vest…”

“That’s not my problem. I’d like to see my wolf now, though. Just tell me where and I’ll leave you to your plans.”

Disappointment flickers across his sister’s face, but she recovers with a smile. “The lab is three levels up and to the right.”

“Thanks.”

“Are you leaving tomorrow?”

“Tonight, probably. As soon as the Judge process is completed,” He pauses, wondering how much he should explain. “Something’s come up, I hav’ta get back to Joe’s Compound soon.”

 

-

 

The Judge gets its first kill in the woods outside of Faith’s Gate. A pronghorn fawn, as young and gangly as the Judge but a little bit taller. Jacob strides towards the Judge chewing at the fresh kill with careful steps, being sure to watch where he’s going in the dark.

The Judge process took hours to complete, finishing at around 3AM. Jacob stayed with the chemists the entire time, overseeing the whole thing. Usually, the process takes longer—a day or more—but Faith’s chemists couldn’t quite get the serum right without the old research. They did what they could, casting fearful glances at Jacob whenever they had to tell him what they _couldn’t_ do without the old serum.

He was pissed, yeah, but there was nothing more anyone could do. Oh, what he’d give to get the chance to tear Eli’s head off. At least the serum the chemists reproduced was able to do _some_ things. The wolf’s senses were sharper now, much more than before. Its fur bleached over into the grey-white wash the old Judges had, a side effect of the mutations the serum puts them through. It can follow orders a lot better now too, being able to read Jacob a lot better now. At least there’s that.

Though with the new, botched serum, it can’t take much of a beating compared to how sturdy the old Judges were, so Jacob’ll just have to be careful with this one. The abrasive, bloodthirsty trait the old Judge serum heightened in the wolves was missing as well. Consequentially, the pup is still soft.

A sigh escapes Jacob when he sees the outline in the dark of his new Judge waiting for him by the fawn, tail wagging happily. Back at the lab, Jacob had half a mind to actually _ask_ the chemists if there was anything in the serum that would make the pup less… _cute_. But he’d never asked, knowing that not only was it would look ridiculous to ask something like that, but the softness _will_ grow out of the Judge as it ages. Patience is the key.

The small Judge leaps at Jacob, smelling like chemicals and blood, licking Jacob’s hands and sore jaw as he lowers down onto one knee.

“Sit.” He commands, and it instantly obeys. It’s dark, but Jacob can still see the pup’s tongue lolling out and tail wagging. His old Judges used to be stoic, still as stone, for fuck’s sake.

Jacob looks down at the dead fawn and pulls out a hunting knife. He cuts into the fawn’s slender neck, starting right where the muscles have been torn apart by the Judge’s kill. After he’s cut a few inches, he dips his fingers into the cut, gathering blood.

The Judge whines softly when Jacob clamps his other hand down like a muzzle around its snout. He guides the Judge’s head closer to him. With blood dripping from his fingers, he paints a cross on the pup’s face, red striping down, above, and in-between its blinking eyes. Marked by its first kill after the serum.

He lets go of pup, wiping the excess blood off his fingers and onto his jacket. “Now you’re a Judge.”

The Judge huffs in reply and licks his face. Jacob sighs and stands, turning back towards the direction of Faith’s Gate.

“Come.” He says, and the Judge happily follows him.

It’s a short trek back to the ornate white gates of Faith’s bunker. There’s a pick up parked outside, ready for him. And for some reason, Faith is there too, walking alone among the flowers. The Judge barks excitedly when it sees her, running past Jacob’s legs. Jacob whistles sharply, and the Judge stops midway to Faith’s open arms.

“You’re no fun,” Faith pouts.

“It’s a wolf, not a dog.” Jacob walks to the pick up and throws his guns into the passenger seat. “Why are you here, Faith? It ain’t even sunrise.”

“To see you off, of course,” she yawns, exaggerating sleepiness. “What kind of sister would I be if I didn’t?”

Jacob shakes his head and glances at the truck bed. Empty. “I requested a cage from your Faithful. They too damn Blissed to follow a simple order?”

Faith grins and walks over to the Judge, scratching behind its ears. “I told them to forget the cage.”

“Why the hell would you make them go against my order?” Jacob grits his teeth.

Things _really_ have not been going his way the last 24 hours, have they? He turns around slowly to glare down at his adopted sister, who’s now holding up the Judge with her hands hooked beneath its front legs, the rest of its body dangling in the air.

Faith holds the wolf pup up to his face. “Be _cause_ he’ll want to ride with you, silly!”

Jacob sighs, exhausted. He hadn’t bothered to sleep, has slept _worse_ than usual since the Deputy disappeared, and he can feel it all catching up to him. The Judge, held so close to his face now, licks his cheek.

“Fine. Don’t have time to wait for a cage now anyway.” Jacob grumbles. “Put the fucking wolf in the passenger seat.”

Jacob yanks open the driver’s seat door and climbs in, pushing his guns aside on the seat across the divider for Faith to put the Judge on the seat. He starts the truck when Faith’s closed the door, one small hand tapping the window frame to get his attention.

“Drive fast,” she says, “I heard it’s gonna start pouring later. Maybe you can beat the rain.”

Jacob nods in response, and starts the truck.

 

-

 

He doesn’t beat the rain.

The sky’s a dark, gloomy grey when he pulls up at Joseph’s Compound. The rainfall isn’t heavy, but it still causes muddy puddles and has Faithful running for cover. The doors to the church are wide open, and the inside is packed with Faithful for Joseph’s morning sermon.

Jacob ducks out of the pick up, slinging his guns over his shoulder and scooping up the Judge before he’s out. He waits until he’s inside the church, under a roof, before he sets the Judge down. It seems he’s arrived just in time for the end of the sermon, because after he wipes the rain off his face he sees Joseph raise his arms and bow his head, Faithful in the pews mimicking him.

He spies John standing at the back of the dais, behind Joseph like a shadow. He nods at Jacob from across the pews.

The crowd of Faithful disperse after Joseph says his closing words. Jacob doesn’t have to push through the mass of Faithful shuffling out of pews and vacating the church, as always the people part for him as he strides towards his brothers, the sound of the Judge’s paws pattering on the wooden floor following him.

“Jacob,” Joseph greets warmly when he joins them on the dais, pulling him close to press their foreheads together, as they always do. “You return earlier than I’d have thought.”

They both pull away, and Jacob’s hands drop from his brother’s shoulders when he sees something on his face. Right on his cheekbone, underneath the rim of Joseph’s aviators, run three thin red lines of a scratch.

A _scratch_.

“Joe,” Jacob says softly, carefully. “What is that?”

It could be her. It _has_ to be her.

“It’s nothing.” Joseph draws back a step, rosary-bound hand drifting up to lightly touch the thin scabbing. “I just wasn’t being careful. No need to worry about me, Jacob.”

Yeah, it’s _Joseph_ he’s worried about. Jacob feels his hands ball into tight fists at his sides, he breathes carefully, evenly, willing his body to relax. His hands clench, unclench, clench, unclench. At his feet, the Judge makes a curious noise, trotting between them towards John at the back of the dais, sniffing around.

“If you say so,” Jacob finds himself replying smoothly, voice low, holding onto self-control with both hands, “just—I don’t know what you were doing, but be more careful, alright?”

“Jacob—I needed to speak with you but you left in a hurry yesterday. Why don’t we catch up? Let’s leave Joseph to the Flock, shall we?” John says, stepping between the two of them. Bodily blocking Jacob from Joseph and vice versa. He tilts his head to the side, towards the pews. “I can see a few eager eyes waiting for _The Father’s_ attention.”

The Judge, still wandering around the alcoves at the rear of the dais, begins to bark, pawing at the floor like it’s trying to dig. Each frantic swipe of its paw goes in time with the rhythm of the rain.

“Yes, I—” Joseph’s attention is focused on the Judge. He looks back at his brothers, several of the Flock waiting patiently at the entrance of the church, but his eyes keep darting back to the wolf. “I am needed elsewhere. Jacob, John—perhaps you two could talk somewhere else? I fear your little wolf is going to scratch up the floorboards.”

Jacob goes still. She’s here. Joseph knows she’s here. Joseph’s _keeping_ her here, he has to be. _Why?_

“Of course, Joseph.” John shoots a small smile, his hand gently pushing on Jacob’s shoulder, urging him to move.

Jacob whistles sharply, keeping cool eyes on Joseph. The Judge stops its scratching and runs back to Jacob’s side. “We’ll see ya, Joe.”

John leads him off the dais, nodding to the Judge when they reach the entrance of the church. “Pick him up. We can chat in my cabin but I won’t have your new Judge muddying up the place.”

Jacob only replies with a vowel of agreement, bending down to tuck the small Judge into his arm.

After a quick sprint in the rain, they reach John's cabin mostly dry.

“Sit.” The Judge obediently stays in the corner.

“You knew the Deputy was alive, didn't you?” John fires at him immediately, barely a few steps away from the door they came in from.

There's no point hiding it now. John clearly knows, the smug shit just wants Jacob to _confess_. What else can he do but tell the truth? Shit’s gonna hit the fan sooner or later, might as well get this one thing out of the way. Doesn’t make this any less uncomfortable, though.

“I didn't know she was alive,” Jacob says, swallowing hard at the admission, “I didn't know she was alive before that day in the Compound—when she was here.”

John smiles wide at him, toothless, biting his tongue—holding back an _I knew it!_ for Jacob's sake. Then his eyes narrow, squinting slyly at Jacob as he clasps his hands together. A drop of rain falls from the sunglasses on his head and splashes onto his coat. “So _that’s_ why you were late to meet me that day.”

“ _John_. Get back on track—what was it you wanted to tell me?”

It was a good thing John pulled him away from the church. He might have done something rash if he spoke to Joseph any longer. Fuck, acting out without thinking seems to be something Jacob does a lot when it comes to the Deputy.

“Was she the _lead_ you spoke of that day? You two are working together?”

“Just to see what Joseph’s doing. I ain’t switching sides if that’s what you’re worried about.”

John studies him for a moment. “Alright. Well, what did she find out when she was snooping around? What’s Joseph hiding?”

“She didn’t show. Been missing the last coupl’a days.”

John hums. “That explains how wan you’ve been looking, then.”

Jacob crosses his arms, patience wearing thin. Every _second_ he spends here doing nothing is a second more of potential danger for the Deputy. “John. Tell me what you wanted to say. I have things to do.”

The Judge yaps in the corner, as if it’s agreeing.

John rolls his eyes, then falters, suddenly looking uncertain. Blue eyes dart to the ground before they meet Jacob’s gaze again. “Actually, now that you say she’s missing… I think someone is being kept under the church. That day the Deputy was in the Compound—I went to find Joseph, and I found him just as he was leaving his prayer room,” his voice lowers, soft and unsure, “I swear I heard something on the other side of the door.”

That explains the Judge in the church, trying to _dig_. Jacob sucks in a breath, voice lowering to match John’s volume. “And what did it sound like?”

Like the Deputy, beaten down? Shouting? Snarling like a caged animal? He can’t imagine she’s doing anything else but fighting.

“Like a person,” John whispers.

That’s all Jacob needs to hear.

“Come.” He looks to his Judge. It leaves the corner and follows Jacob as he veers around John to grab the doorknob.

“Jacob.” A cold, tattooed hand coils sharply around his wrist, halting him. There’s a hesitant note in John’s tone. Like he doesn’t know if he should let Jacob leave, let him wander into the rain while all the dots connect in his head.

But Jacob’s sick of grasping at straws, especially now that he’s _sure_ Joseph’s involved. Joseph has always kept secrets—thoughts only to be exchanged between him and _The Voice_ —but despite the Collapse hanging over their heads, this feels more world-ending to Jacob than the actual fucking _End_.

Maybe because the world has never been Jacob’s—the world chewed him up and spat him back out, tossed him down the garbage disposal and never cast another look in his direction again. But Joseph—his Family, his blood, has always been the world for Jacob. His Family is his world, and Joseph did more than just pulling him out of the gutter, he gave him _purpose_. A reason to take up the sword and shield.

And then Joseph pulls the rug out from under him, taking the only other person aside from his Family he’s _ever_ let that close, and locking her away from him. For what _goddamn_ reason? Jacob’s not important enough to know, apparently. He can’t fucking stand it.

The rain outside begins to fade from his hearing, white noise taking its place.

“Let me go, John. I ain’t gonna tell you twice.”

“What are you going to do?” John asks sharply, quietly, wavering right at the end of his question. He tightens his grip around the cool skin of Jacob’s wrist. “I know you care about her, but it’s _Joseph_. Exactly _what_ are you going to do?”

What _is_ he going to do?

A violence flashes through his mind’s eye, shades of red clashing with strife and fury. Blood on his hands—but whose? He doesn’t want that, no, he _wants_ that but it’s wrong. The idea of bloodshed has never tasted so bitter. It’s usually how he solves his problems, isn’t it? A calculated kill with no second thought, but now everything is too tangled, too intertwined with harsh consequences of their own.

“I can’t do anything with the Flock still doting on him, that’s for fuckin’ sure,” Jacob replies, breath hissing through gritted teeth. He feels a drop of rainwater rolling down the side of his head. “M’not gonna hurt him. You _know_ I’d never do that.”

A tense silence follows, the rainfall outside coming back to his ears, drowning out the slow-building noise in his head.

Jacob doesn’t know what he’s gonna do. This is complicated, so damn complicated he can’t even take the time to formulate a proper plan. He knows the Deputy’s alive, that Joseph is hurting her somehow—otherwise that scratch on his face wouldn’t be there. Jacob just has to find her, that’s all he knows, that’s all he can think about.

He needs—he needs to think.

John lets go of his wrist and steps back. Jacob doesn’t meet his eyes.

“Stay away from the church today,” Jacob says quietly, opening the door.

He steps out into the rain, the Judge at his heels, and strides toward his own cabin. As his boots briskly splash into puddles and rain drips down his face, he recalls the instructions Armstrong had given him on how to reach the private frequency the Deputy and her friends use.

He’s got a radio call to make.

 

-

 

The problem with being sedated by some fucked up drug from ‘God’ multiple times a day is the dreams that follow every damn time. Nightmares, really. Some things stay the same—the neverending field, the clouds in the sky, the faces Rook sees—but the nightmares are always different. Sometimes not _all_ her friends die. Sometimes Jacob dies. Sometimes Rook dies.

But she’ll always wake up back in Joseph’s little room of craziness, feeling both nauseous and limpid at the same time. Plants sprout from the walls, from the pipe she’s cuffed to. Hell, there are even tiny little leaves growing out of the cuff. Rook tries to poke at the leaves, to test if they’re actually there ( _it’s Bliss, don’t lose your fucking head_ ), but her pointed finger misses the cuff, sluggishly falling to poke the black and purple stick of bruising that’s become her wrist. She can feel the pain when she pokes it, somewhere deep down, senses so dull that she could slam her head against the wall and wouldn’t feel her skull crack.

“Good morning,” Joseph says, slithering into her view. Rook isn’t even surprised to see him there anymore. The more she’s Blissed, it takes her longer and longer to look around the room and remember details.

“What time is it?” Rook croaks dryly. He hasn’t given her any more water since she scratched him.

“Just past seven.” Joseph squats down in front of her—a safer distance from her, he’s more careful of that now. Though it’s not likely she’d be able to hurt him again. She can feel Joseph’s plan working, ebbing away at her own self, draining the fight from her. “I have something to show you.”

Joseph’s holding something in his hands, she’s slow to notice. A small metal case, less than a foot in length. There’s a small click sound as he swings the top half up, displaying a neat array of wires, a black foam padding, and a bright white switch.

“Soon, when it’s time, all you have to do is press down.”

Rook inhales deeply, holds her breath. She wants to say _no_ , like her rejection will actually be of use, but she’s afraid that if she opens her mouth, what will actually come out is _okay_.

_Okay._

_Yes, I’ll do it._

Rook breathes out shakily. She looks away from Joseph, her eyes unfocusing somewhere to his right.

“You can feel the Bliss working, can’t you?” he says. Rook hears a soft _click_ as Joseph shuts the box. He strides over to a lockbox sitting on the table and places it inside, dropping the keys into his pocket when he’s done.

“Why,” Rook finds herself saying.

“You already know why, Child.”

“You said you saw me killing your family, and because… because of that The Collapse will come. Did you ever stop and think that maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t have?” she says slowly, softly. Words fatigued in her mouth. “Maybe I wouldn’t have killed them. Maybe if I knew.”

Joseph looks away from the lockbox, cool eyes narrowing at her. “You _would_ have. I saw it myself. Your destiny is to destroy. Even now, what you chose to have with Jacob drives a wedge in our Family. You _will_ destroy, you _would_ destroy. All because you think us villains.”

It takes all of her energy to lean forward, handcuff rattling against the pipe. “Yeah... I made you my villain, but you forced that same role onto me the moment the Reaping began.”

They lapse into a frosty silence, just staring each other down.

Then Joseph looks away with a sigh, clasping his hands together. “I must get ready for the morning sermon. You need more Bliss, I’ll have to do that when I return later.”

Rook sinks back against the wall, watching him with dry, deadened eyes as he leaves, slacks tapping on the concrete floor with each step. The door swings shut, and Rook feels her eyes close.

 

-

 

Her Bliss dream is interrupted by a rough hand shaking her shoulder, rousing Rook from her sorry excuse of sleep.

“Wake up, Dep, hey! Come on, god, you fucking stink of that Bliss shit,” says a familiar, sharp voice.

Rook groans, blinking hard as she wakes. She must still be fucking dreaming because when her vision clears Jess is kneeling down in front of her, signature scowl and all. Her hood is dripping wet, some of her face shiny with sweat—or water? Is it raining outside? There are little Bliss flowers shimmering in her hair.

“Oh shit,” another familiar, gravelly voice mutters. “Look at her eyes, Jess. She almost looks like one of those zombies. Doc can fix that, right? She’ll be okay? Dep—hey, come on, look at us. Can you see us?”

The hand on her shoulder tightens, and Rook realizes it’s not Jess’ hand. Lolling her heavy head to the right, she sees Sharky, who grins brightly but worriedly at her. She sees double of him for a moment, dizzied by the turn of her head. There are little leaves sprouting from his hat, swaying to a breeze that isn’t there. _It’s just the Bliss._ He’s just as rained on as Jess, hat soaked and dark spots of raindrops freckling down the sleeves of his hoodie.

“Y-yeah?” Rook croaks, unsure of how to answer. She _can_ see them, but her vision has been getting more and more clouded from her time with Joseph.

“Good,” Jess says, the cold edge to her voice crumbling a bit with relief. “You’ll be fine.”

“I’m still dreaming, aren’t I?” Rook mumbles, voice raspy. But she isn’t dreaming, is she? Everything still feels hazy, Blissed, but none of her dreams have ever looked like this.

Jess pulls some pins out of her pocket and starts tinkering with the handcuff braceleting her wrist.

“Nope!” Sharky says, popping on the _p_. “Your culty boyfriend radioed us, told us where you are. We fuckin’ booked it to ya right away. _Psh_ , and he had the balls to tell us not to come! Like hell we’re gonna let _him_ do all the saving—”

“Wait—” Rook shakes her head, mind reeling. It’s a bad move because she just gets dizzier. “What? _Boyfriend?_ You… how did you get past Joseph? How—”

“Stop fucking moving,” Jess snaps at her, still messing with the lock on the cuffs. “This shit is harder than it looks.”

“Did some sneakin’, of course,” Sharky says, a lopsided grin on his face. “Well. Some sneakin’ and some killin’. Jess here cleared most of the way for me, y’know, I’m not as great at the ghosting shit as she is.”

“Don’t even know why I brought you along,” Jess mutters. “Could’a had Grace with me.”

“You know she likes distance,” Sharky counters. “She _is_ here, anyway! Watchin’ all our backs somewhere in the woods.”

“Grace is here?” Rook asks weakly. How long was she passed out for? “What… time is it?”

“Three in the afternoon or somethin’.” Jess mutters over her handcuff. “Wasn’t really paying attention.”

“The whole gang’s here,” Sharky says, giving her shoulder an assuring squeeze. “I mean, Jess and me are the only ones _here_ here, but everyone’s, uh, around somewhere. Waiting for a fight to start, I guess. We _are_ leaving this shithole guns blazing, right?”

“I-I don’t know, Shark.”

“We just hav’ta get you out of here,” Jess says in a clipped voice. “We’ll figure out the other shit later.”

Something feels wrong. Rook’s forgetting something. Her head is too muddy.

Rook grabs Sharky’s arm, exhaling a gasp of warm breath as she remembers, fingers balling up the fabric of his green hoodie. “Do you see a lockbox on the table there? We have to take that with us. We… we can’t leave that here with Joseph.”

Sharky twists, looking over his shoulder without leaving Rook’s side. “Uh, I just see your weapons, chica.”

“No, no, no—” Rook leans forward, stressing against the handcuff to look over the distant table’s edge. Her words are urgent, but they come out slow and sluggish, like she’s speaking through a mouthful of marbles. “There. There in the back. You see that?”

“I said don’t _fucking_ move.” Jess hisses.

Rook murmurs a floaty _sorry_ and slumps back against the wall as Sharky looks over his shoulder.

“Shit, yeah, I see it,” Sharky says, looking back at Rook. His eyebrows knit together with concern. “I’ll grab it when we go. Gotta help you get back on your feet first, okay?”

“Okay,” Rook whispers, frowning. She can’t shake the creeping feeling. It’s not the detonator, though that _is_ important. “M’forgetting something.”

Something else. Not even a _thing_ , an object to pick up and hold—no, her gut’s telling her something else, but her brain can’t connect the dots. Just an unnerving buzzing beneath her skin, taunting her.

“What was that, Po-Po? Got real quiet for a sec.”

Rook just shakes her head, expression wrinkling into miserable as she feels her brain rattle at the motion. She’s _got_ to stop doing that.

The radio at Sharky’s hip crackles to life, words drifting out at a low volume. “Hey, rain’s clearing up. I don’t think it’s gonna stay dry for long. Y’all find Dep yet?”

Sharky unclips the radio and holds the receiver close to his face. “Yeah Nick, we got her. You wanna say hi, Dep?”

“Hey,” Rook croaks, leaning into the receiver.

“You sound like shit!” Nick’s voice crackles through static with outraged and worry. “You three fuckin’ haul ass outta there, alright? It’s better if y’move while my visibility up here is good. Rain’s not gonna stay away for long.”

Sharky clips the radio back to his hip and squeezes her shoulder encouragingly again. He frowns over at Jess. “Could ya pick that a lil’ faster, Jess? Thought you knew how to do this.”

The cuff presses into Rook’s numb wrist as Jess doubles her efforts, scowl deepening. “I said I’ve done this before. Didn’t say I was a fuckin’ expert.”

“Can’t we just shoot at it?”

“Sure, if you wanna blast Dep’s hand off.”

Over Sharky’s shoulder, Rook sees the door move. Just a bit. And then Rook realizes what was bothering her.

“Fuck,” Rook breathes, just as she sees the metal door crack open. “You guys—the door. Who’s watching the door?”

The hinges of the metal door whine as it swings halfway open.

“ _Sharky_ ,” Jess hisses. “ _The door._ ”

Sharky’s eyes widen. He jumps to his feet and spins around. “Ah, shit, my bad—”

Joseph’s long, slender arm glides into view—coming out from the lower half of the doorway, eye-level with where Rook is still slumped against the wall. Her blood runs cold when she spots a small, cubed object in Joseph’s hand. His hand sets the open music box on the ground by the door, and with a small push of crooked fingers the box slides into the room.

A lot of things happen at once.

Sharky curses and fires his shotgun a second too late, hitting nothing.

Joseph’s hand slams the door shut, leaving them alone.

Rook desperately grabs Jess’ arm in effort to stop her from what she’s doing.

The melodic, twinkling notes of The Platters begin to chime from the music box.

“Got it,” Jess mutters, triumphant, as the cuff falls from Rook’s wrist.

And then the edges of Rook’s vision burns _red_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry if this chapter was a little slow, it was hard to find time to work on it this week!  
> next chapter's gonna be a doozy, hopefully. i'm hoping maybe... two more chapters left if this all goes according to plan? i'll fight myself in hand to hand combat if it doesn't.  
> and since we're reaaally approaching the end i wanna take the time to say, again even though i've been saying it the last few chapters, that i'm so glad and grateful you guys are enjoying this and are still aboard for the ride. i LOVE you guys, and love love love reading your comments gosh they really get me through the week.  
> thanks for reading <3 next chapter will be up... soon. i hope. probably. yeah.


	15. Chapter 15

Jacob waits for the rain to stop.

It’s better that way for everyone, really, if Jacob just got some time to _think_. The problem now though, as he watches the rain outside his window thin down, is that he still has no plan. He just has to confront Joseph away from prying eyes—that’s all Jacob can think to do without an act of violence.

He’s just going to talk. Could be as simple as that.

He hates himself for having to let himself simmer, to cool down and get his head on right while the Deputy is still down there, held captive. What would he even say when he gets to her? All he can think of is to tell her he _didn’t know_. He’s not going to beg for forgiveness, grovel, but she _needs_ to know he had no part in this.

Would she blame him?

The quiet sound of rain tapping against his window has died. Looks like it’s stopped. There’s a soft rumble of thunder in the distance. The daffodils Faith put in his room look wilted and gloomy under the grey lighting from the window and from the neglect. Bright yellows flattened down to a murky, honeyed gold.

Someone’s shouting outside his cabin. Peeking out the window, Jacob sees Faithful ducking under cover, readying their guns. _Shit_ , he knows exactly what this is, especially when he sees a familiar green laser dot track across the crates outside. Those fucking idiots didn’t listen to a word he said.

He’s got to get moving, if the Deputy’s friends get to Joseph and the Deputy before he does… He doesn’t even know, fuck. He has to make sure Joseph doesn’t get hurt. He wants to make sure the Deputy doesn’t get hurt any more than she already is.

Jacob strides out of his cabin, rifle at the ready, and passes the cage outside by the window. His Judge looks tense inside, hackles raised.

“Down, down,” he says, commanding and soothing. The Judge still looks tense, but it settles down, the growl much quieter.

Jacob moves on, leaving the Judge in the cage—one less head to keep track of in the brewing chaos. He spots John among the men and women, gearing up behind cover. They both give each other a passing nod as Jacob strides through the Compound, he hopes John remembers his warning to stay _away_ from the church.

There are two Faithful and a Chosen heading towards the church.

“Protect the Father!” The Chosen barks, eyes ahead as Jacob approaches from behind. “Get to the—”

The Chosen’s interrupted by his own disgruntled noise as Jacob’s hand clamps down on his shoulder and _yanks_ him back, pushing past him and the rest of the Faithful.

“ _You_ will stay to the rest of the Compound—protect John,” Jacob orders, his voice almost a hiss. He tugs at the strap of his rifle and further shoves the Chosen back with his other hand. “ _I’ll_ take care of The Father. Now go. Nobody’s gonna set a goddamn foot inside the church or anywhere near it.”

And with that Jacob soldiers on, determined to get Joseph alone. To _contain_ the situation. Those fucking Resistance idiots just made this ten times messier than it already was with their siege and rescue plan. He looks to the woods outside the Compound as he walks in the open, ignoring the protests of warning from Faithful.

“Brother Jacob, look out!”

“Sir, you’re in the open!”

Jacob ignores the pleas, they don’t tell him what to do. He glares at the woods, where he saw a rustle in the bushes. He _dares_ Armstrong to pull the trigger on him. He narrows his eyes, hoping she can see his expression through his scope. _Yeah, fucking do it then. Put your precious little Deputy in danger. I’m the only one who’s gonna get her out of here. Nobody else._

A Faithful seems to notice that Jacob is moving unharmed, and they decide to test their luck, poking their head out from behind a crate, eyes scanning the Compound.

A booming shot reverberates through the woods and Compound, and the Faithful has got a bullet between their eyes before they were even able to raise their gun.

Jacob feels his lip curl in distaste, it was a stupid move from that Faithful, they should have stayed down. Despite that, Jacob is also _pleased_ —because now he knows, as he strides towards the church, that he’s fucking untouchable. Privacy is assured as well now, knowing Armstrong is going to down anyone who decides to disobey Jacob’s direct order to stay away.

God, he hopes John stays away. Hopes he isn’t being reckless.

A plane soars above, engine sputtering. _That’s Rye_ , Jacob thinks, checking another one of the Deputy’s friends off his mental list of idiots who might be here. And as Jacob reaches the church, through narrowed eyes he spots a helicopter hovering above the water, a good hundred or so meters away. It was Drubman, the mother, who owned a helicopter, wasn’t it? Junior must be on board too, either that or that big idiot is with Armstrong in the woods.

So that just leaves the two he absolutely loathes. Boshaw and goddamn Jess Black. Where could they be hiding? The woods along with Armstrong? Somewhere behind him, he hears a couple of the men hollering something about searching the woods.

The doors to the church are closed. It sounds quiet on the other side. A drop of water pricks Jacob’s cheek. He wipes it away with two fingers and glances up at the stormy grey sky. That didn’t last long. The rain will be back soon.

Jacob pulls open one of the church doors and slips inside, shutting it behind him as he steps into the dry church.

“Jacob,” says a soft, somber voice, cutting through the thick silence of the church interior.

Joseph is waiting for him on the dais. Hands clasped together in prayer. Rosary wrapped around his palm, assault rifle hanging on his back.

“Joe,” he answers his younger brother, voice louder, stiff. He takes a step towards the dais.

Joseph’s shoulders cinch, hands parting to face his palms outward, to halt. He takes a step closer to the edge of the dais, that one step creaking the wooden surface in time with a distant rumble of thunder.

“You can still turn back, Jacob,” he says, a pleading note hidden somewhere in the warning of his words. “Just let me—”

“Let you _what_ , Joe?” Jacob asks wildly, cool composure crumbling, throwing an arm out into the air in front of him, arcing across the pews. He takes another step forward. “Let you—do whatever the fuck it is you’re doing down there for hours and hours each day? Let you keep us all at a distance while we have no idea what the hell is going on? Let you keep _secrets?_ Don’t even get me started on John—he told me what you said to him about his _‘Atonement.’_ Really, Joseph—you threatened we’d leave behind _John?”_

Jacob lets his arm fall back to his side as his shoulders rise and fall with heavy breaths. He bites on his tongue, lip curling in disdain for his own outburst, his own loss of control.

“I have done things I am not proud of,” Joseph confesses in a hushed voice, hands coming down to his sides as well, though at a more sedate movement compared to Jacob’s riled body language. “But I am not ashamed of my work _here_. And you should know as well as I do, what power secrets have over someone when they arise.”

Jacob crosses the distance between him and the dais in four large steps, looking at Joseph with his head tilted down as a dangerous feeling surges in his balled up fists. When he gets to the base of the dais, there are tremors in fists, arms stiffly keeping them in check. He looks up to meet Joseph’s eyes, where he hovers above Jacob from the elevation of the platform. Behind the yellow aviators, his expression is flat and unreadable as ever, boring into Jacob’s skull.

“I know you’re fond of the Deputy, Jacob.”

“And I know she’s here.” Jacob steps up onto the dais, never taking his eyes off his brother, shoulders tight. Joseph steps back, keeping himself in Jacob’s path, using his body to barricade Jacob from the alcove.

Somewhere below, he hears faint clamors of sound, he feels the smallest vibrations of it under his boots.

“Let me pass,” Jacob grinds out between his teeth, gravel in his throat. He releases his fists, working his hands at his sides, fingers curling into fists and back out to a rhythm that doesn’t exist. “Joe. Don’t make me go through you.”

Desperation flashes behind those aviators. Joseph’s hand drifts up to clutch the front of Jacob’s jacket, stringed beads of the rosary wrapped around his palm going taut as he bunches the material of the jacket within it. “Would you really turn your back on your Family for her? For the sinful, the corrupt? Think about this, Brother.”

“I _have_ thought about this!” Jacob seethes. “And I’m _not_ turning my back on—I’m not fucking _switching sides_ , if that’s what you’re scared of, Joe. And the _corrupt?_ Look at me. _Look at me_ and tell me I’m not the same. I’ve done terrible things, and I’m okay with that. I know what’s due for me. I have been _Strong_ so you could be _‘righteous’_ so don’t start that shit with me. I will _never_ betray you, but I—I can’t let you keep doing whatever the fuck it is you’re doing.”

There’s a quiet mania in Joseph’s unblinking eyes as he looks up at Jacob, wavering his voice. “It _has_ to be done.”

“You _took_ her, goddammit. She has to be okay, Joseph. Don’t know what the fuck I’m gonna do if she’s not—”

A loud crash coming from downstairs halts his words. Jacob feels his brother’s mania spread, the hand grabbing his jacket injecting it into him like a blood transfusion. But it’s a different kind of mania—more of a panic, a desperation but for something else, for someone else.

He tries to shoulder past Joseph, but Joseph grabs Jacob’s shoulders in attempt to stop him.

Joseph’s calm demeanor is wearing away, something frantic taking over. “You can still walk away—”

“What the _fuck_ is goin’ on down there, Joseph?” Jacob growls, shrugging off his brother’s hands.

“I’m going to _save_ us—”

They both startle at a muffled blast sounding off below, sounds like a shotgun. Then, a roar.

“I’ll deal with you later,” Jacob hisses, shoving Joseph out of his way and practically running to the alcove. He descends into darkness as he yanks the curtain back and starts down the iron stairwell, boots tapping against metal to the anxious beat of his heart.

When he reaches the cramped little hallway, he hears it. _Only You._ The song that used to give him peace, memories of a quiet moment to himself amidst the darkness of his childhood. Then, a song to _drive_ , to give purpose. Weaponized.

And now, hearing the soft echo of it from the other side of the metal door, mixed in with a cacophony of grunts and cries of pain, Bliss fucking _everywhere_ , he feels dread.

 _“Kill!”_ He hears snarled from the other side, followed by another loud crash.

Jacob glances behind him to make sure Joseph hasn’t followed him down, and he sets off running towards the door. His whole body slams into it, hinges rattling when the doorknob twists halfway and doesn’t swing open.

“Locked,” he mutters, stepping back and rearing up to kick. Like hell Joseph will just give him the key if he goes back and _asks_ for it.

_“Jess? Jess, god please tell me you’re not dead. Get up, get up, I need your badassery right now!”_

He kicks once, the metal screams.

_“Dep, hey now, come on, you can snap out of it—we’re like Dom and Brian rem’ber? Fast n’ Furious—ah fuck!”_

Another loud crash. A strangled cry.

Jacob kicks again, teeth grit, the force sending icy shocks up his joints that he knows he’s going to feel tomorrow.

“Goddamn door,” he growls. If those idiots die she will _never_ forgive him.

With one more painful fucking kick, the door bursts open, metal hinges whining. Eyes wide and wild, Jacob enters the room, keeping his rifle hanging on his back. He’s not planning on shooting anyone in here.

The first thing Jacob notices is how much fucking Bliss is in the room. Not as much as the containment chamber Faith is keeping the Marshal in but the room reeks of it. Bliss and the coppery smell of blood. The room’s a fucking mess—particles glimmering in the air, puddles on the floor, too many empty barrels lying around.

The tables have been knocked over, papers and radio setup scattered on the ground. Weapons too, Jacob spots his red rifle sticking out from underneath a flipped table.

And then _The Deputy_ joins his rifle on the ground, Jacob watching her fall over after Boshaw’s smacked her in with the end of his shotgun.

When she lifts her head off the ground, elbow propping herself up, and Jacob takes the state of her in. He doesn’t know what he was expecting from Joseph, torture doesn’t quite seem like his style, but the Deputy is shining with old sweat and Bliss. The substance stains her shirt, her jeans. There’s practically a cloud of it hovering around her. Left arm bruised to hell, especially around her wrist, a dark, dark ring of red and black.

And her eyes. Her eyes, _fuck_.

Glazed over, unseeing, pupils hidden underneath an unnerving sheen of milky white. She’s practically an angel. Not quite, but well on her fuckin’ way.

When she starts to rise—snarling, predatory, and practiced like one of his soldiers—Jacob notices the handgun she’s picked up from her knocked over pile of confiscated weapons.

At that same moment, Boshaw glances over his shoulder to see Jacob, his nose bloody and possibly broken. His sleeve is stained with fresh blood. His eyes are wide with fear and panic, but at the sight of Jacob, the expression on his face replaced by an infuriated glare. “This is your fault! Turn off your fucking song, you ginger dick!”

Jacob’s eyes drop down to the music box, on his side of the room just a few feet away from him. Not far from the box is a motionless Jess Black sprawled facedown on the floor. _Shit._

Jacob takes one big step towards the music box as he hears the Deputy snarl. He slams his boot into the box, watching the Deputy aim the gun straight at Boshaw’s head. Jacob doesn't even think of just closing the box, pocketing it for later to assist in possibly reclaiming his region—he just _acts._ The box breaks under Jacob’s weight, but the music keeps going. The notes are all over the place now, twisted in an eerie manner.

_—you and you alone can thrill me like you do..._

_“Cull the herd!”_ The Deputy growls, voice raw and feral, as Jacob stomps on the music box one more time.

A second passes, and no shots are fired. Jacob risks another glance while the music _keeps fucking going_ to see the Deputy growl at the discovery that the gun isn’t loaded. She throws the gun at Boshaw’s head. He yelps out a string of curses and tries to dodge, but she’s too fast.

She tackles him to the ground just as the gun hits his forehead, knocking his hat off. The sunglasses on Boshaw’s hat skid across the floor as they both go down _hard_. Boshaw hollers and raises his hands to block—but the Deputy’s faster and stronger. She straddles him and brings a fist down onto his face, then punches him again with her other hand. She’s growling between the punches. “ _Train. Hunt. Kill. Sacrifice.”_

Jacob curses and brings his boot down on the music box again and again, in time with the Deputy’s pummeling, and the music finally stops. He doesn’t waste another second—he rushes at the Deputy, grabbing her by the arms to roughly haul her off Boshaw.

The song is no longer playing, but it still takes anywhere between a few seconds to a few minutes for the trials to leave his subject’s heads. The Deputy thrashes in his grip, conditioned not to hurt _him_ but still yearns for blood, to _kill the weak_.

“Dep,” Jacob tries, trapping her arms against her torso by locking his arms securely around her. She snarls, head lurching forward towards Boshaw, motionless and bloody on the floor. Her hair is matted with grease, sweat, and old Bliss, sticking to her neck and forehead. “ _Deputy._ ”

Jacob leans back, pressing her tightly against him as he lifts her off her feet and pivots around so she’s no longer facing Boshaw. Facing the wall, she continues to snarl, but fights a little less, squirming and kicking in his grasp as her hands bend upwards to claw at his sleeves in a futile attempt to break free.

The Deputy’s breathing turns ragged as the conditioning begins to wear off, her fighting become sluggish, fatigued. A guttural sound escapes her, like a groan. She continues her attempts to twist out and break free, but Jacob doesn’t loosen his hold for a second.

“You did good,” he finds himself saying quietly, comfortingly. It’s wrong, he knows this, it’s fucked of him to say when her hands are covered in her friends’ blood—but that was the point of the conditioning, wasn’t it? He’d only gotten to her once before shit went down in the cave and bunker, but he faintly remembers how her shoulders would sag at his praise when she culled, fucking _preening_ at the two simple words of _good work_.

It still works, because when he says it she relaxes. She’s still droning on, mumbling _hunt_ and _sacrifice_ under her breath, but she’s stopped fighting and melts into his hold. Jacob squeezes her lightly, shushing her as he rests his forehead down against the top of her head.

The Deputy exhales a shuddering breath, muscles freezing up. Then, she goes still, passing out as the song finally leaves her head.

He doesn’t dare let go.

 

-

 

Rook tastes blood in her mouth. She opens her eyes slowly, sees the world blurry and Blissed for the millionth time. She sees a wall she’s all too familiar with, but for some reason she’s facing it instead of leaning against it. Then she sees the cuffs on the ground, no longer around her wrist.

She raises her head, the world spinning as she does so, and notices a pair of arms caging her torso, immobilizing her own arms at her sides. There’s blood on her hands, fuck, her knuckles are busted and raw.

“What?” she groans quietly, voice scratching up her dry throat. Her _sore_ throat—has she been shouting?

The arms around her tighten in response, then suddenly she’s being spun around. Her vision blacks out for a moment—brain still booting back up and the sudden movements being of _no_ help—and suddenly she’s looking at Jacob, leaning down and tilting her head up with gentle but firm hands so they’re face to face.

Before Rook can even croak out another _what_ of disoriented confusion, Jacob asks, “Are you okay? Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?”

Rook opens her mouth to speak, but fails to find words, overwhelmed by the questions being thrown at her, the _person_ standing in front of her. It’s only then that everything comes back to her. Sharky and Jess. _Only You_. The blood on her hands, oh god, the blood.

Jacob cuts off her train of thought by pulling her face towards his and smashing their lips together. It’s sloppy, desperate, and quick, and Rook barely gets time to respond before he’s pulled away, moving to pepper light kisses along her cheeks up to her forehead. The familiar scrape of his beard releases a warmth into her veins. If he’s put off by the disgusting sheen of sweat, grime, and old Bliss settled on her skin he doesn’t make any comment on it. He just traps her face between his rough palms and murmurs between every press of his lips— _gonna get ya outta here, he’s never gonna go near you again, i didn’t know i didn't know_ —

His beard prickles against her face as he murmurs fervently into her forehead. Her fingers curl around the sides of his jacket, steadying herself against his warmth. There are butterflies resting on the front of his jacket, and Rook's eyes latch onto one perched on the rim of his pocket.

She just stands there for a moment, watching the little Bliss hallucination, breathing in his scent. Jacob is still murmuring things, but she can't focus on what he's saying, transfixed on that little blue butterfly.

It flutters off his pocket, and Rook's eyes follow it through shimmering particles of Bliss, flying past an empty, toppled barrel of Bliss, perching on the hem of a dirty green hoodie—and then she's shoving Jacob away with a horrified shriek.

“Sharky?” Rook stumbles forward, batting Jacob's hands away when he reaches for her again and feels her knees buckle beneath her. A small puddle of Bliss soaks into the knee of her jeans as she crawls towards Sharky, who's not moving. “Sharky? Fuck, _wake up!”_

His face is _fucked_ —swollen in places and so fucking bloody. Rook reaches for his face and sees her bloody hands, _Sharky's_ blood on her hands. Immediately she attempts to wipe it off, desperate to get it off, scrubbing her stinging knuckles against her shirt, her jeans, but it just spreads.

Jacob, voice softer than she's ever heard it, says her name and reaches for her again. He gets a hand around her arm before she twists around and shoves him away.

“Don't—just—stay away from me!” She snarls, her own words ending with a pathetic, choked sob. He's gone blurry through the fat tears pooling in her eyes, running down her face, but she can make out the shape of his arms retracting quickly, taking a heavy step away from her.

“Okay,” he says, a resigned note in his voice. Hollow, almost.

 _Only_ fucking _You. Fuck him, fuck his brainwashing._

Rook turns back to Sharky, grabbing his hoodie with trembling, blood-smeared hands. She shakes him gently, then urgently when he doesn't respond. She's tracking blood on to his beloved hoodie and she doesn't even care.

Her vision has seemed to clear. She still sees shimmering particles of Bliss in the air, still feels like a light breeze could whisk her off balance, but the hallucinations are gone. She can think a bit better. Maybe the sucker punch of guilt and grief flushed most of the Bliss out of her system.

Movement stirs somewhere out of the corner of her eye, she doesn't take her eyes off Sharky's battered face but she hears Jacob's footsteps move towards it.

“Shark, come on, please, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry,” Rook miserably pleads, hands hovering around his head—too scared to touch the bloody mess in case she hurts him again.

She should listen for a heartbeat, check his pulse, do _something_ —

There's a rattled moan on the other side of the room, by the toppled tables. Rook's head snaps up from Sharky to notice _Jess_ , beaten and stirring and _alive_.

_Thank god._

Jacob hovers over her, slowly assisting Jess with rolling her onto her back. It sends a jolt of fear into Rook's bones, seeing his large figure looming over Jess’. After the damage that’s been done to her friends, she’s fucking terrified of whatever could possibly do more.

“Don't _touch_ her,” Rook hisses at him. It breaks her heart to leave Sharky's side but she scrabbles to Jess, swatting Jacob's hands away from her fallen friend.

Jacob, silent as ever, steps back and gives her space. His face is unreadable, walled up.

Rook hovers over Jess, eyes scanning her for wounds. There’s a big, bleeding bruise on the side of her forehead and a fucking _knife_ sticking out of her thigh, buried deep. Jacob’s knife, how fucking ironic it is that Rook has stabbed Jess with Jacob _fucking_ Seed’s knife.

She’s angry with Jacob, furious with him. The sensible part of her head knows this wasn't him, that Joseph was the one who brought the music into the equation, but she’s stuck on the fact that the monster Joseph brought out was a monster of _Jacob’s_ making. 

Maybe she even hates Jacob right now, for what his conditioning has made her do. But in this very moment, looking at what she’s done to her friends, at the knife Jacob practically _gifted_ to her, Rook hates herself the most. This is her fault.

“Jess,” Rook says softly, voice wavering. She helps Jess sit up slowly, steadying her with her bloody hands around her shoulders.

“Ugh, fuck. My head,” Jess slowly opens her eyes then shuts them again. “Dep, that you?”

“Jess, I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”

Jess huffs out a bitter laugh, blinking up blearily at her. “For what? Stabbing me in the back? Or _actually stabbing me?”_

“For all of it. Everything.” Rook wipes her arm across her face, clearing up some tears. “And you even still came to _save_ me after you found out, and I—fuck, I almost killed you. I—and Sharky…”

“Shit,” croaks Jess, straining her neck to glimpse over at Sharky. Jacob has gone over to him, two fingers pressed against Sharky’s neck. “Is he alive?”

“Pulse is there,” Jacob says evenly, after a moment of careful consideration. “Still strong. Think y’just knocked the hell out of him.”

Rook lets out a shaky exhale, something between a shudder and sob of relief swimming through her. _Alive, alive. You didn’t kill either of them._ She tightens her grip on Jess’ shoulder, some of the tension releasing in her body, and smiles sadly at Jess. Hesitant. “Jess, I’m—”

“You’re _sorry_ for everything, christ, I fuckin’ get it,” Jess interrupts, words harsh but her expression not unkind. She winces slightly after trying to move her knifed leg. “Listen, Dep. I’m not even gonna say we’ll talk about this later because we won’t. You know I, shit, I—”

“Hate emotions?”

“—Yeah, and don’t be fuckin’ _smart_ with me right now, you’ve literally just stabbed me.” Rook winces at that. Jess continues on, lifting a hand to awkwardly clap Rook on the arm, then drops it limp at her side. Jess leans in and lowers her voice, maybe so Jacob wouldn’t hear. “Dep. We’re _good_ , okay? I ain’t happy about it, but I’m still your friend if that’s what you’re fucking worrying about.”

Despite the pain, the Bliss, and fatigue, Rook cracks a watery smile. “You have no idea how relieved I am to hear you say that, _really,_ Jess.”

“Can’t believe I’m in physical agony and this whole time you’ve been fucking worrying about _friendship_.”

“Bitch.”

Jess wheezes, the corner of her mouth quirking up. “ _You’re_ a bitch.”

The smile falls off Rook’s face when she looks down at the knife hilt jutting out of Jess’ leg. “You and Sharky have to get out of here.”

“Not you?” Jess frowns. Jacob’s eyes snap to her as well, trying to get get a read on her.

Rook doesn’t meet Jacob’s gaze, looking pointedly at Jess instead. “I’ll leave after I expose Joseph, I’d say wait up for me, but you and Sharky need a fucking doctor.”

“And you _don’t?”_ Jess scoffs. “Look in a fuckin’ mirror, Dep.”

No doubt she looks terrible, but this is her _chance_. She doesn’t want to come back to the Compound ever again, better to rip off the band-aid now.

It’s then that a gurgle escapes Sharky, groaning awake and coughing up blood. Rook carefully steps over Jess to make it back to Sharky. Jacob quietly gets out of her way before she can shove him again, making room for her to fuss over Sharky.

His body’s intact, just a few scrapes, it’s really just his face that’s messed up. Rook doesn’t waste any time yanking his shoulders to make him sit up. Sharky groans in the process, blinking away sweat and blood dripping over his eyes. Rook gently takes his chin and moves his head around, inspecting for any other wounds she possibly overlooked before.

“Dep?” Sharky croaks, his one swollen eye twitching. “You’re not gonna kill me, are ya?”

“No, no, no,” she blurts, voice catching. “I’m so sorry, Shark. I—I almost killed you. Fuck, I hope you can forgive me.”

“Dep.” Sharky’s bloody face twitches into a scowl, like what she said was the stupidest thing he’s ever heard. “We’re ride or die.”

Rook throws her arms around his neck and engulfs him in a hug, muttering into his hoodie. “We’re ride or die.”

Sharky lets out a chuckle that turns pained when she accidentally bumps his face, but he hugs her back just as tight.

“Wipe that grumpy fucking look off your face, Seed,” Jess huffs somewhere off to the side. “If you’re gonna be sticking around you’re gonna have to get used to how pathetic these two are around each other.”

“Y’know I could just as easily get my knife back and watch ya bleed out on the floor.”

“Dep would never let you.”

Rook draws back from Sharky. When his arms fall from her sides, she reaches over for his fallen hat and sunglasses on the floor, tucking them into Sharky’s pocket. “Can you stand?”

Sharky winces and bends his legs. “Yeah, I can walk. My head fuckin’ hurts, but I can walk.”

Rook helps Sharky to his feet, and the two of them shuffle over to help Jess up. Jacob stands by the open door, eyes darting up to the hall and staircase with a vigilance.

“How did you get here?” Jacob asks, directed at Jess and Sharky, his large hands idly picking at the strap of his rifle.

“Boat,” Jess answers, tone clipped. With that knife in her leg, she’s got her arm thrown around Sharky’s shoulders for support. “We can get to it through the woods.”

“S’not gonna be easy,” Jacob sighs. “Joseph’s probably got everyone waiting up there for us to come out.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Rook assures her friends. She heads over to the mess of toppled tables on the floor. There’s no use picking up a gun when Joseph’s gotten rid of all the ammo, nor can she use the knife with it being the only thing stopping Jess from bleeding out, but she finds the lockbox with the detonator. She picks it up carefully, holding it close to her chest.

“You should go with ‘em, Deputy,” Jacob says, uncertainty in his blue eyes. “S’not safe for you here.”

Rook narrows her eyes at him. “Like hell I’m leaving now.”

He takes a step towards her, reaching with one hand to cup her face. “Even the Strong have their limits. You need to get out of here. You need to recover.”

She snatches his wrist and pulls his hand away from her face, scowling at him. “I’ll recover when this is _over_.”

 _The defectors I could get when I tell everyone he had a plan to stage The Collapse._ Rook will _not_ pass up on this chance.

She roughly drops Jacob’s hand and steps away from him, ignoring the sting she feels in her chest when he looks at her like she’s struck him. A fatigue settles in her bones as she tears her eyes away from the emotionless mask Jacob dons after he’s caught the slip of emotion, the slip of weakness.

Rook just wants this all to be over. The already cramped a hallway they’ve stepped into feels even _more_ claustrophobic with Jacob’s eyes burning into her, so with a white-knuckled grip on the lockbox, she runs up the iron staircase, ignoring the protests from everyone else.

“Deputy—wait!” Jacob hisses and reaches for her, but she’s already too far up.

The hallucinations are gone, sure, but her common sense is still Blissed to hell. Rook can see herself acting rashly, _knows_ she’s acting rashly, but just the desire to get this the fuck over with possesses her.

When Rook flies out of the curtain blocking the alcove, the church is practically empty. It’s pouring rain outside, there’s a rumble of thunder, but other than that it’s quiet. There’s no gun show waiting to fill her with bullets, not a single Peggie nobody in sight. Just a Herald and the fucking Father himself.

John Seed lurks by the pews while Joseph stands at the center of the dais, regarding Rook with a look of quiet anger and disappointment. Both of them are armed, but the gun in John’s hand is resting down while Joseph isn’t even holding the assault rifle hanging on his shoulder.

Then Jacob is suddenly here, pulling her back by the shoulder so he can stand in front of her, bodily blocking her from his siblings. Rook tries to move, but Jacob keeps his arm outstretched behind him, barring her from getting any closer to the center of the dais.

“Joseph,” Jacob begins, his voice is cold, detached, but there's something hesitant about his posture. Rook watches the back of him, watches him stand up straighter, rigid as he rolls his shoulders back. “And John. Thought I told ya to keep away.”

“I couldn’t just stand there twiddling my thumbs now, could I?” John shrugs, his bastard smirk nowhere in sight. Instead, his brows are furrowed, mouth turned down as he looks at Jacob and Rook. She can’t read what emotion it is, but it’s not happy. It’s not anger, either. Something more somber than that. Conflicted, maybe.

Jacob’s shoulders heave in a silent sigh. When he addresses Joseph again his voice is rougher. “Joe. Just let us pass.”

Rook casts a glance behind to see the bill of Sharky’s hat and Jess’ wrapped knuckles, the two of them shrouded in shadow behind the curtain. Rook’s heart pounds in her chest, they both need medical attention soon, shit, _she_ even needs that kind of attention if she stops forgetting herself, but it’s safer for Sharky and Jess to wait there. Joseph knew they were down there, but maybe he doesn’t know they’re alive.

Perhaps, if he notices the drying tears on Rook’s cheeks, the blood on her hands, he might safely assume they’re dead.

“I can't let her leave, Brother,” Joseph says. Rook peeks out from over Jacob's arm, and Joseph's eyes flare when he sees the lockbox clutched in her hands. He cocks his head to the side, steadying Jacob’s gaze once again. “What has she told you?”

 _Nothing_ , Rook realizes, she had been so angry and anguished she forgot to tell him Joseph’s plans. _Well, if there’s ever a time to say it, it’s now._ “He wants to bomb the whole fucking county. He wants to start an early Collapse.”

It’s the truth of course, but if Rook hadn’t known from Jacob that two of the brothers were both already suspecting something of Joseph, she would have found it strange that no one bothered to accuse her of a sin such as lying. She watches Jacob stiffen at her words, and by the pews she sees John freeze as well, wide blue eyes looking over to her—no, to Jacob. Rook can’t see Jacob’s face from where she stands, but she sees one side of a silent exchange in John’s expression. Shock, an _aha!_ moment, but there’s something else—concern, disbelief.

Watching the faultless figure of _The Father_ crumble before his eyes.

Rook keeps going, taking initiative in the loaded silence among the brothers. “He wanted to make me do it. He wanted me to be the one to push the button and start it,” she staggers around Jacob’s slackened arm and steps forward, entering the playing field an arm’s length away from Jacob. She feels thick locks of her greasy hair cling uncomfortably to her neck when she turns her head to glare at Joseph. “You wanted _me_ to start your rush delivery Collapse, and now I’ve got your detonator in my arms. Give me the fucking key, so I can open this shit and destroy it.”

Behind his aviators, Joseph’s eye twitches, nostrils flaring as his eyes dart from Rook, then to the lockbox in her hands, then to Jacob.

“Joe, what were you thinking?” Jacob says softly, almost sternly. Rook watches the profile of his scarred face storm through expressions, hardening from sadness to anger. Disillusionment.

The floorboards creak as John slowly steps up onto the dais, shoulders sagging as he looks at Joseph from behind. Speechless. _John Seed at a loss for words, maybe I_ am _still hallucinating._

“It was for _you_ ,” Joseph hisses through bone white teeth. His fist clenches around the rosary balled up in it as he whips his head around, looking between Jacob and John with a fierceness. “It was for all of you. I saw you _die_ , and I will not stand by and let that happen. I have _ensured_ the Collapse will happen, without losing any of you.”

“You—you _lied_ ,” John finally speaks up, not moving from where he stands several feet away from Joseph. He spares a dejected glance to the floor before sweeping up to burn his gaze into the back of Joseph’s skull. “You _told_ me the Gates of Eden would be closed to me, and then you _lied_. You said it was God who decides, but _you_ can suddenly pick and choose?”

He breaks off like he wants to say more, but swallows down the words. Rook knows, _remembers_ , because she was there when Joseph gave him that ultimatum, and she definitely did _not_ let John finish his Atonement on her. She thinks the words John refuses to let slip from his lips is something along the lines of ‘ _but you didn’t choose me_.’

“I can still save you—” Desperation seeps into Joseph’s voice, his eyes wide with a renewed mania. Distressed strands of hair fall loose from his bun as he sweeps his arms wide in a grandiose gesture, one hand reaching for John and one hand reaching for Jacob. “I kept it secret for the benefit of our Faithful, but I don’t regret my actions. This is necessary, don’t you _see?_ Please, Brothers, I know you feel betrayed, but it was only for the _best._ ”

“You didn’t have to do this,” Rook sneers. “You just wanted to be _right_.”

Jacob remains silent. Her eyes flit over to him briefly, watching the gears grind in his head, a muscle jumps in his jaw.

“You were just going to tell a _select_ few, was that it?” John presses, a sharpness in his voice. Joseph still doesn’t turn his head in his direction. “Why keep me around if I wasn’t part of it, then? To hold your image of _welcome_ among the Flock? To stave your guilt? Were you just going to tell Jacob and Faith? _Answer me,_ Joseph.”

Jacob’s words cut across the room like knives. “I _said_ we weren’t leaving you behind, John. I won’t—”

“But I want _him_ to say it!” John snarls, his fraught eyes never leaving Joseph. There’s a flash of light from the windows, a crack of lightning somewhere far away.

“John,” Joseph begins, still not looking at him. “I saw in a vision—”

“A _vision_ ,” John scoffs, taking a step backwards, his eyes drop down to glare at the ground. “Well, _God_ has settled _that_ for you then.”

It suddenly feels too cold inside the church, too cramped. Rook feels like she shouldn’t be here, especially not for this. John Seed is her enemy. He’s violated her personal space countless times, but suddenly her presence here feels more invasive than him stabbing ink into her chest.

Rook swallows hard, recollects her nerve, and cuts the family matter short with a step towards Joseph. “Give me the key, asshole, or I’ll _take_ it from you.”

 _“No!”_ Joseph roars, the outburst startling everyone. Joseph staggers wide-eyed towards Rook, hands finding his assault rifle and leveling it at her. “You are not _ruining_ this, Child. If you won’t comply, if you won’t stop _resisting_ , I’ll just have to do it myself. _You_ ,” he jerks the gun at her, lean shoulders cinching together as he takes aim, “are no longer worth the trouble. I cannot let you leave.”

Jacob’s voice catches. “Joe—”

Joseph doesn’t take his aim off Rook. “Hope County no longer needs you.”

“Joseph, _stop!”_ Jacob barks, stepping in front of Joseph, in front of the rifle pointed at Rook’s face. Jacob doesn’t reach for his weapon, nor does he reach for Joseph’s. He stands like a wall between Rook and Joseph, fists balled up and trembling by his sides. Rage just barely controlled. “Cut the shit, Joe, just—just let her go.”

From where Rook stands, feet rooted to the ground, she can see Joseph’s face, just slightly obscured by Jacob’s broad shoulder. The Father’s eyes are wide and unblinking, the lines on his face more pronounced, loose hairs sticking out of the usually tight bun on his head. The rosary is ever present in his hand, the cross dangling next to the grip of the assault rifle clutched tight in his slender hands.

“Jacob,” Joseph’s voice edges on feverish, his brother’s name stumbling off his tongue. “She will expose this to the Flock. It will destroy us—that’s what she _does_ , she is the snake in the garden. She will destroy us, she has already turned _you_ against me.”

“I can’t let you do this,” Jacob’s voice drops low and hoarse, desperation creeping in. He takes a step closer to the gun. “You—y’gotta go through me first.”

“Jacob—” Words get caught in Rook’s throat, the only thing she can manage is to plead his name. The gesture is like a punch in the gut, knocking all the breath out of her—except it’s not just a gesture, is it? Jacob had once asked her to kill him, and now he’s ready to die for her again.

“Joseph—Brother, put the gun down,” John pleads from behind Joseph, he’s so far from Rook and the request is so soft she almost missed it. “You can’t—it’s _Jacob_.”

“Jacob,” Joseph’s voice cracks. “Step out of my way.”

Jacob snatches the barrel of the rifle—which has Rook’s heart thundering out of her chest already because that’s _so_ fucking risky—and points it up up up to poke into his beard and rest under his chin. One hand shaking at his side, and one hand white knuckling the barrel he digs it into the underside of his chin.

“C’mon Joe,” Jacob rasps. “Do it. S’my purpose, isn’t it? My sacrifice. To _die_ for you, to give my life. Do it then, _do it._ Pull the trigger, ‘cause I’m not gonna back down until you do.”

There’s another tear of thunder outside the church. Joseph’s aviators are crooked on his face. He sucks in a deep, shuddering breath. His index finger itches toward the trigger. Jaw slack, his eyes dart around Jacob’s face, desperate for some kind of bluff. But Jacob isn’t going to back down, and the knowledge of that chills Rook to the bone, paralyzes her, because Jacob is _serious_.

It’s not the first time he’s offered up his life, after all.

What’s worse is that Joseph looks so fucking far gone that he might actually do it. To gun down his own damn blood in order to get his vindication. Jacob is just fulfilling his role, a necessary death for Joseph’s cause. Just a human fucking shield, the malformed guise of the big brother role from someone who only ever equated _protection_ with his own suffering.

Maybe Joseph does love his Family, but in a fucked up, secondary way. Which is why that love won’t stop him from killing Jacob, because he had already assigned him the role of Protector. A man long dead, walking the earth until _The Father_ decides it’s time.

“This is my sacrifice,” Jacob quietly reiterates. “Just—don’t kill her. Don’t.”

He sounds calm, so fucking calm and accepting of it Rook wants to scream and shake him, but she feels trapped in this tableau, like any movement will spur the moment back into action and Jacob will have a bullet lodged in his head before she can even reach for him.

“I didn’t want this, Brother,” Joseph says shakily, his expression has slackened, shutters with grief. Unhinged and grieving the brother he has yet to kill.

Joseph exhales, eyes widening again as he holds Jacob’s gaze with renewed vigor.

Rook wishes Jacob would just turn around and look at her. The lockbox feels like a ton in her hands.

A shot cracks through the air before Rook can even brace herself. The sound leaves a white noise in her ears. She flinches, squeezing her eyes shut at the suddenness of it, the weight of this death on her.

When she opens her eyes, Jacob staggers forward like he’s been wounded—but he hasn’t. He’s fine. _He’s fine._ He cries out something lost to the ringing in Rook’s ears.

It’s Joseph who falls, dropping down to one knee. Rook doesn’t see any wounds marring him, but then he slowly brings his hand down to the front of his black waistcoat. There’s blood staining his hand when he pulls it away, smearing onto the beads of the rosary wrapped around his palm.

The ringing in her ears is gone when the assault rifle falls out of Joseph’s slackened grip, clattering onto the floor. He sways, about to hit the ground hard when Jacob catches him with steady hands and gently ushers him down.

“Joe, look at me, _Joseph,”_ Jacob urges, voice raw in the back of his throat. “Shit. We just—I have you, I have you. Don’t move.”

Jacob has dropped down onto his knees to settle beside his bleeding brother, eyes wide and panicked as he puts pressure down where he needs to.

Rook glances around for a broken window, for somewhere the shot could have come from, but she sees no sign of an external force. Instead, with both Jacob and Joseph down and no longer blocking her view, she sees John, frozen, sidearm still raised in his hands.

The moment seems to come back to him after the coppery smell of gunpowder and blood hits the air anew.

John drops the gun, knees buckling beneath him as he frantically crosses the small distance between him and his brothers on the dais. He collapses down next to Jacob and Joseph, tattooed hands gripping Joseph’s shoulder tightly as words stumble out of his mouth. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Joseph, I thought you were going to do it—I couldn’t let you, _I’m sorry.”_

Joseph is eclipsed by Jacob’s hunched over form so Rook can’t see his reaction, but she hears him splutter something too quiet for her ears.

“Medic,” Jacob says once, then louder, shouting hoarsely for the Peggies outside to hear. _“Medic! We need a medic!”_

“Dep.”

She turns around at her moniker. Sharky and Jess emerge from the curtain. Sharky looking exhausted, and Jess looking too pale for comfort. The bloodstain soaking her pants around the knife has gotten bigger.

“We gotta go now,” Sharky says, shifting under the weight of supporting Jess. His eyes dart to the windows. “Peggies are gonna be bustin’ in here soon.”

Rook bites her lip. She can’t stay now, something in her gut tells her now that it’s not her place to tear at Joseph’s pedestal further. Not now, not anymore. Everything feels too… _raw._ She nods at Sharky to start moving for the windows—to the scaffolding she had climbed into the church through all those days ago.

She still needs to get rid of the detonator. That’s the one thing. She turns back to the brothers on the ground and takes a hesitant step forward.

“Jacob,” she swallows hard. “The key.”

Jacob tears his gaze away from his brother, bleeding in his arms, expression completely livid when he meets her eyes. Eyes so wide she can see the whites all around, jaw held so tight his teeth might shatter.

Rook fights the urge to flinch back, fights the ache she feels in her heart, but can’t help her mouth pressing into a grimace. “I’m sorry, I—I know this is my fault, but I _need_ the key.”

Jacob says nothing and she wants to sink into the floor.

It’s Joseph who tries to say something, coming out in a ragged, wet exhale. His bloody hand trembles as he reaches down, blindly looking for his pocket.

 _“Dep,”_ Sharky calls her from by the window.

“They’re comin’, I can see them,” Jess says weakly, head leaning against the window frame.

“Jacob,” Joseph coughs, still patting for his pocket. It could just be the weakness of pain and blood loss, but he sounds _defeated_. “Let—let her have it.”

Jacob bats Joseph’s hand away and digs his hand into Joseph’s pocket himself, producing the key Rook saw back in the room underground. Jacob’s hand is slick with Joseph’s blood and it smears onto the key, tiny in his hands.

“Take the fucking key.” Jacob tosses it onto the ground next to him, lips curled, baring teeth. He turns back to Joseph, back to John, _away_ from Rook. “Now get outta here while y’still can.”

Rook steps forward and picks the bloody key up off the floor, close enough now to hear the strings of _i’m sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry_ John whispers down to Joseph.

She reaches out for Jacob’s shoulder, she doesn’t know what for. To comfort him, maybe, or to just touch him before she goes. He ignores her, focusing down on Joseph.

Her hand stops just before it reaches him, fist curling around cold, empty air as she ultimately decides against it.

She leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was a monster! way longer than it had any right to be! i had to cut another scene i wanted to fit at the end away, hopefully i can stuff that into the next chapter properly
> 
> yikes it's like 3am, i think i had more to say in terms of end of chapter notes but now i can't remember. but anyway! thanks yall for reading, glad you're still with me for the ride <3


	16. Chapter 16

Jacob and John don’t leave Joseph’s side for days. It’s unusually quiet at the Compound. It’s unusually quiet for _Hope County_. Like the land has been draped with a blanket of silence, settling over all of the County’s harsh edges.

You have your every gunshot or two ringing out somewhere miles away, but that’s where it remains: miles away. Nobody has tried to attack the Compound or any of their remaining outposts. Minus the few reported scuffles on the roadsides between Resistance and Faithful, nothing has happened. Jacob doesn’t know if it’s because the Deputy’s somehow done something to the Resistance, convinced them to let their guns cool for some time, but it’s truly almost as if both sides are avoiding each other.

Jacob doesn’t ponder on it that much, because it would mean he’d have to think about the Deputy. He’s doing that unfortunately well on his own already, he doesn’t need any more subjects that could cause his thoughts to stray to her. It just takes him down a spiral, thinking about how angry she was with him, how she refused to be near him after she’d come back from the Song. How she had her arms wrapped around Boshaw instead of _him_. Then Joseph was bleeding on the floor, and he had been furious with her too, he doesn’t know why, he just _was_. The flash of hurt in her eyes when he tossed her the key—

He doesn’t think about that. No, he should be thinking of _now_ , and just how the fuck his Family’s going to come back from this.

He knows the Faithful are torn, inner conflict brimming within the ranks. After John shot Joseph and the Deputy left, it fell to Jacob and John to talk to the Faithful, to somehow _explain_ the tangled mess of shit that went down in the church.

To the worried, expectant ears of the Flock they gave as much of the truth as they could. There was no point in trying to save the image of Eden’s Gate’s leaders, not when so much has happened between them, not when they’ve become so disillusioned to Joseph’s actions.

 _The Father is not perfect,_ John had told those listening, voice hoarse from the emotional turmoil, _he is only human like you and me, he will make mistakes, but... some mistakes can’t be so easily forgiven._

It was amazing to Jacob how he could address the Flock so eloquently after the breakdown he had in the church. It was amazing to Jacob how any of them are really functioning, with Joseph in a medically-induced coma to help his wound heal faster.

Naturally, without the guiding voice of the Father, the Flock is at a divide. Some are disillusioned to the cause, haunted by the fact that Joseph could have done something so wrong that his own brother shot him, haunted by the fact that Joseph was, for a moment, so keen to spill his own brother’s blood with his own hands. Some, without the knowledge of _why_ Joseph would try to shoot Jacob, defended The Father blindly, cementing their faith further from the quiet debate among themselves.

Jacob and John resolved not to speak of Joseph’s plan for an early Collapse just yet. They said what they could, and decided to remain quiet about it until Joseph woke. They would let The Father decide how he falls.

For days, John talks to no one, spending his time gazing off into the distance with a thousand yard stare that painfully reminds Jacob of Joseph in his younger years. In that time, Jacob barely speaks to anyone as well, after a few vague orders his Chosen decided to pick up the slack. Faith visits for a few days, shaken but eager to see things running shipshape. The Flock quietly continues their day to day activities, no excursions or assaults on the Resistance planned, and no attacks from the Resistance in return.

They’re lucky there’s a strange, unspoken ceasefire, because with Joseph unconscious, morale is in the ground—buried so low you’d have to dig for it.

 

-

 

The solemn week passes, and Joseph staggers on his feet.

“I don’t like this,” Jacob says, steadying him with a hand on around his arm. “Y’shouldn’t be on your feet so soon.”

“I’ve had a lot of time to think,” Joseph ignores Jacob’s protest, his voice still raspy from lack of use. “I hear that the Resistance has not come knocking when word of my condition spread. No doubt there is some kind of change of heart among the ranks, do you think? I must embrace this change, and I must come clean.”

“Gonna get a second carving of _Pride_ on ya, Joe?”

Joseph chuckles weakly. “No, nothing of the sort. I’m going to tell the Flock what I’ve done. Or, what I have tried to do.”

Jacob stiffens. The Project could come crumbling with an admission like that. “If—if this is about what happened between you ‘n me in the church, you don’t have to—”

“I _do_. From my hubris, I almost killed you, Jacob. _Willingly_ ,” Joseph says, a finality in his tone that stops Jacob from arguing further. “I am going to confess to the Flock, reconcile with my actions. But perhaps I should start with you, Brother.”

Jacob swallows, his shoulders suddenly feeling heavy. “I don’t blame you for trying to kill me, Joe. It’s my purpose.”

“It’s not _that_ I seek forgiveness for. I do regret that, and I _am_ sorry, but I know you forgave me for that the moment you pointed the gun at yourself... I am sorry, Jacob. I’m sorry for the Deputy.”

Jacob looses his hold on Joseph’s arm, letting Joseph sway back to lean against the bedpost. Jacob looks away from his brother, hardening his gaze to the sterile floor. He clenches his jaw tightly, searching for words.

Joseph accepts the silence, continuing on. “I thought I could cheat the Collapse, cheat your deaths. What the Deputy said in the church was true—I wanted to be _right_. I wanted to save you, but my desire to be vindicated came above all. Instead of the Deputy fulfilling the vision I saw, I twisted her into the role of scapegoat. Even while I knew how much she meant to you. For that, I hope you can forgive me.”

Can he? Maybe one day, but Jacob sure isn’t feeling _forgiveness_ right now. He’s angry, yes, fucking surprised he hasn’t had an outburst aside from the occasional tremor running through his fingers, but something holds him back from unleashing his anger on Joseph. Guilt, most likely, guilt for letting Joseph get hurt after he swore his life to him. Guilt from not being able to save John from Joseph, or Joseph from himself. He drags his eyes away from the ground to meet Joseph’s. The same blue as his, vulnerable and human now without the yellowed aviators he wears like armor.

“I don’t believe in God, don’t think I ever did, but I believed in _you_ ,” Jacob grates. “I believed in you, and you fucked up.”

The two of them are quiet for a long time, stiflingly so. Then Joseph leans forward with a wince.

“I…” he begins quietly, trailing off as his gaze pulls back from a faraway stare. “I’d like to speak to John. Before I speak to the Flock. Jacob, could you—”

“I got you,” Jacob mutters, voice low in his throat. He helps steady Joseph on his feet. “Let’s go find him.”

 

-

 

The Marshal had once again proven to be a pain in Rook’s ass. It would have been _a lot_ easier for Rook to get the Resistance to chill for three goddamn seconds, but _nope_. The same day Rook had watched John Seed shoot the _fucking_ Father, Faith Seed had her own plans.

Rook’s plan, when Grace boated her, Jess, and Sharky to Hope County Jail to get Dr. Lindsey’s help, was to tell the Resistance leaders of each region to lay off the cult for a few days. Crazy fucking idea, Rook knew this, but it was worth a shot anyway.

She trusted Jacob ( _and maybe John_ ) to deal with Joseph, to deal with exposing him. There was a chance that they wouldn’t, that they would keep it quiet and continue playing happy murder cult family, but so much had happened. Too much. This _had_ to be some kind of turning point for the County, either that or Rook shouldn’t rely on her gut feelings anymore.

The detonator was gone, disabled by Eli and the Whitetails and broken into pieces that were chucked into the Henbane. Hopefully, with the radio silence they’ve been getting from the cult, Joseph’s been thrown off his pedestal.

It had been so hard to get the Resistance to hold back, Rook having to face roars of outrage when she suggested they _don’t_ retaliate for Faith zombifying the Marshal. It didn’t help that Bliss was still being flushed out of Rook’s system, that Tracey didn’t trust a word Rook said while her eyes were still glazed a milky light green.

And it _certainly_ didn’t help when, on that _same_ fucking day as zombie Marshal and Joseph shot, that word had also, somehow ( _quite likely Hurk’s big fuckin’ mouth_ ), gotten out around Hope County Jail about Jacob and Rook’s _thing_. That made things way more difficult than they already were.

So, yeah. One week of putting her ass on the line betting on the slim chance that two cult Heralds could be helping her dismantle the cult from the inside. One week of puking and nausea and skittishness from Bliss withdrawal. One week of listening to people whisper behind her back about how she couldn’t fucking keep it in her pants.

Thank god Jess and Grace are _very_ intimidating people. They never really left Rook’s side, having her back and silencing _loud_ , judgemental thoughts from bystanders with dual glares.

Finally, things start looking up when a broadcast comes in from John Seed.

Rook and her friends sit gathered around the small TV on the bartop of 8-Bit Bar, bar stools eagerly scraping across the floor to shuffle closer to the TV, followed by several frantic shushes when John begins to speak.

He looks a little worse for wear, bags under his eyes and usually immaculate hair a few strands out of place, but he still dons his trademark, charismatic smile that makes Rook want to punch him in the face. Nothing against John, not really, not after he sort of saved Jacob, but that smug smile of his just makes everyone outside of the cult instinctively curl their fists.

 _“To the ‘Resistance’ of Hope County, I’m sure you have all heard strange things this week,”_ he begins, hands clasped together in the same genial manner he had in his _YES_ advertisement all those months ago. _“It’s been a strange week for all of us, I can safely assume, given our unspoken lack of hostility. We at the Project can only assume your lack of violence is good news, perhaps a change of heart—”_

“Change of heart _my ass_ ,” Nick huffs quietly. Rook nods in agreement, eyes still glued to the screen. The ceasefire wasn’t a change of heart from the Resistance, it was Rook raising her stress levels to the maximum trying to get everyone to indulge her dumb idea to _wait and see_.

_“—so now we present you with a gesture of good faith.”_

Rook holds her breath. _Please be good news._

 _“We will stop our efforts to expand our Project. We will stop our attempts to save you since you all so_ clearly _don’t want to be saved,”_ someone clears their throat offscreen, an audible reminder for John to put away his claws, _“but we will welcome anyone who wishes to join us, with open arms. We will no longer come to you, but you are free to come to us. We only ask that those who don’t want to be saved let us be. We’re ceasing our efforts, and in return would like you to cease yours.”_

“Holy shit,” Rook murmurs. “Now _that’s_ good news.”

“Some folks aren’t gonna like this,” Jess says quietly. “People aren’t gonna _let go_ that easy.”

Hurk purses his lips. “Maybe I can get Hurk’s Gate up and runnin’ now.”

 _“Now, despite our new efforts for peace, there will be those who disagree. There will be those of us who rogue and rebel, and I will firmly state that those of us who do_ will _be cast out. We don’t want to fight anymore, and those of The Father’s Flock who do will no longer be welcome,”_ John sighs softly, perhaps disappointed at the prospect of rebellion in the near future. Then his smile sharpens at the edges. _“Remember that sin is pervasive. It will twist your soul and mar you before the eyes of God. Should you wish to cleanse yourself, to nurture yourself, the Gates of Eden are wide open.”_

The broadcast shuts off, leaving everyone staring at their reflections, huddled together before a tiny black screen.

Sharky breaks away from the group with a low whistle. “That’s…. That’s good, right? No more fighting and shit?”

“There _will_ be fighting, didn’t you hear?” Grace affirms, looking away from the TV. “The Peggies are gonna stop, but there’ll still be cultists who don’t want the fighting to stop. They’ll go awol, and we still have to be ready for that.”

Rook leans back on her bar stool, taking in everything John said while her friends bicker. The legs of the stool creak under her, buzzing in her head as a warning that she’ll fall if she leans too far.

John looked good, a little tired on the edges but not _devastated_. That could mean he’s not mourning the death of his brother, not crumbling at the fact that he might have _killed_ his own brother, meaning that Joseph could still be alive—is _probably_ alive.

There’s something telling about the fact that it’s not Joseph who made the broadcast, then. John didn’t even mention The Father once in his little speech. Judging by how things went down in the church last week… was Joseph dethroned? Some kind of shift in power? Rook doesn’t know who’s on top now, but… but at least Eden’s Gate is standing down?

But will the Resistance stand down? Would they just let the cult be, after everything the cult has done?

She managed to get half of the county to stop fighting for a week, she could probably manage a more permanent ceasefire. Probably. God, the _hair_ she’ll lose from the stress of holding every Resistance leader back by a leash.

Peace isn’t a one-way street. She’s gonna have to talk to everyone in each region. Then maybe talk to the cult.

_Maybe talk to Jacob._

Rook’s hand drifts down to the knife sheathed at her hip, uncertainty brewing in her gut.

“Ugh, get out of here,” Jess sneers, waving a hand at Rook as if she means to shoo her off.

Rook blinks out of her thoughts, frowning. “What?”

“Every time you think about Jacob Seed you’re all over his fucking knife like it’s The One Ring.”

Rook’s jaw drops. “I’m not—I wasn’t—fuck is it that obvious?”

“Darlin’, it’s sad,” Adelaide says, nursing a martini at one of the far tables. “Just go get dicked already.”

 _“Addie!”_ Rook gapes, promptly removing her hand from the knife hilt and settling to cross her arms over her chest. “Seriously?”

Adelaide says nothing, just winks at Rook as she takes a long sip of her martini.

“The One Ring?” Grace asks, raising an eyebrow.

 _“Lord of the Rings,_ Grace,” Nick supplies, lightly nudging Grace. Y’know, that ring everyone's obsessed with?”

“Hm.”

“What?”

“Didn’t take ya for that kind of nerd, Nick,” Sharky grins, eyes glinting with a cajoling energy. There are still faint little scabs around his face, from where his skin split open under Rook’s fists. It makes her stomach flop every time she sees them, but of course, Sharky’s held nothing against her.

Grace half-shrugs, stoic as ever. “What he said.”

Nick scowls at Sharky. “Oh, shut your mouth. I’m ain’t the one who’s _way_ too into disco here—”

“Hey! Disco is my safe space!”

“Tell me you have to go,” Grace says lowly to Rook, rolling her eyes and leaning away from Nick and Sharky’s bickering. Her expression is at its usual level of aloof, but something about the way her eyes crinkle at Rook says _don’t leave me here with them_. “If you’ve got somewhere to be, I’m coming with you.”

Rook nods towards the door, eager to get away from Jess’ wrinkled nose and Adelaide’s smirking. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Before you go,” Adelaide starts, setting down her martini and hopping out of her chair. “Let’s talk outside, honey, I just wanna have a lil’ heart to heart.”

Rook frowns, confused. That seems pretty out of nowhere. She locks eyes with Grace for a moment, both of them nodding, then steps off her barstool towards Adelaide. “Uh, okay?”

She follows Adelaide out the door, Grace trailing behind. Once the music of the bar and her friends’ chatter are faint sounds on the other side of the door, Grace separates from the two women to go get a car.

Rook glances down at the ground, idly kicking around dirt under her boots before clapping her hands together and looking at Adelaide with a sigh. She has no idea why Adelaide is seeking her out now, the confusion of it has made her antsy. “So. Uh, what did you wanna talk about, Addie?”

Adelaide puts her hands on her hips, hip jutting out in a leisurely manner. She shoots Rook a knowing glance. “Been watching you the last few days, hon. Is there anything you wanna talk about?”

“... No? I thought _you_ were the one who wanted to talk.”

“Jus’ saying. I know what it looks like when y’got a man on your mind. Man _troubles_ , that is.”

“Oh Christ,” Rook breathes, a nervous laugh barking out. She turns to leave. “That’s the least of our problems. Listen, I gotta go— _whoa_ —”

Adelaide’s pretty pink nails lock around Rook’s arm and yolk her around, her eyes soft and serious. Motherly, even, if Rook would ever _dare_ associate that word with Adelaide fucking Drubman. “Dep, just listen to me.”

Rook sighs one more time, then her arm relaxes in Adelaide’s grip. “Alright. I’m listening. But Addie, I swear to god if this is some kinky birds and the bees—”

“No, no.” Adelaide releases her arm and waves a hand dismissively, chuckling. “You just looked like something was on your mind. Aside from Peggie shit, I mean. I just wanna know if you’re doin’ alright. You gonna talk to him? Your mountain man?”

Rook’s face burns as she scowls. “He’s not my—ugh, you know what, I’m just not gonna respond to that.”

Adelaide steels her gaze on her, head tipped down knowingly. Rook feels the older woman’s gaze wiggle its way into her head and scratch at the walls. She chews on her lip before she speaks again. “Okay. Fine. I’ll play along. Yeah, uh, he’s troubling me. I guess. I don’t know. Addie, seriously—”

Adelaide tuts, the sunlight catching on her hooped earrings when she shakes her head. “Come on, keep talking. Get it off your chest or it’s gonna eat you right up.”

“God, I just—” Rook makes a frustrated sound, Jacob’s knife a heavy presence on her hip. “It was such a fucking mess back at the church. I—I don’t know if he’d even want to talk to me. Which is awkward, because I should really return his knife, like if he hates me now he probably doesn’t want me running around with his shit. _Plus_ there’s the fact that I don’t even _know_ what the shit we were doing before was. It could have just been messing around, I don’t know, but sometimes it felt like too _much_ to be just messing around, but—”

“Slow down, hon, breathe for a second.”

Rook digs her nails into her palms, the bite of it in her skin somehow helps her steady her breathing. “I’m good. I’m good. I just have a lot on my mind, yeah, fuck.”

“You know, I saw Jacob Seed a couple times before all this war crap went down,” Adelaide says, her smirk softening as she gently tucks a loose hair out of Rook’s face before dropping her hand back to her side, “was watching him from afar with the gals I’d go flying with. We’d sit there after hopping off our birds and watch him stand guard at Joseph’s preaching. Through binoculars, of course, like I’d ever be caught dead within a mile of a church if not to corrupt a man of god—”

“Addie, back on topic. Please?”

“ _So_ we’d sit there at the end of the day admiring how _fine_ those Seeds were— _are_ —and I learned a few things about Jacob Seed.”

“That…” Rook cocks her head to the side, eyebrows knitting together as she scrunches her face at Adelaide. “That’s a little creepy. Though compared to everything that’s happened now, that’s about the least creepy thing I’ve heard from someone in a while.”

“ _I’m just saying_ , that you can tell a lot about a person from their body language. Sure, I spent most of my spying checking out young, sexy John—”

“Ah, jeez.”

“— _but_ I did some starin’ at your man too, and let me tell ya, he cares about his brothers _a lot_. He’d watch Joseph like a hawk, keeping a lookout for any threats. Looked like he’d just about do anything for him.”

Adelaide stops and looks at Rook expectantly.

Rook frowns. “So?”

 _“So,_ he went against Joseph. For you.”

“Yeah, he did, and I was a fucking asshole about it.” Rook shakes her head. Despite herself, she’s smiling—but it’s void of mirth, just a flash of teeth. “You didn’t see him after John shot Joseph. He looked like he hated me. He _does_ hate me, Addie. If Joseph wasn’t bleeding out in his arms he probably would have gone back to trying to kill me right there.”

“You don’t know that—”

“It’s fine. Really, it is. This stirred up so much shit, it’s easier if it just ends.” Rook glances to the road to see Grace waiting patiently by a battered blue car, leaning against the chipping paint of _SINNER_ on its hood as she looks out into the horizon. “Grace is waiting. I should go.”

“Okay. One more thing though.” Adelaide holds out her arms, smirking again. “Bring it in.”

Rook rolls her eyes but leans in to hug Adelaide. “Thanks for checking in.”

“No problem,” Adelaide says low in Rook’s ear. She squeezes Rook tight, trapping Rook from letting go when she starts to speaks again. “You should have seen him when we caught him at the bar last week. He was looking for ya like a lost puppy. You gonna at least talk to him?”

Rook loosens her arms around Adelaide’s shoulders, squirming to get free. “I have to return his knife, don’t I? Yeah, I’m gonna have to see him.”

Adelaide’s hand drifts down from Rook’s upper back, and suddenly a hand sharply squeezes her ass. Rook yelps and jumps away just as Adelaide cackles and lets her go.

“What the fuck, Addie?”

“Just a little parting gift,” the older woman grins, all teeth. “Alright, go on now. I have to get back to my martini. Then maybe get some ass myself.”

Rook scowls at Adelaide’s back as she strolls back into the bar, and after a few seconds of standing in the dirt trying to comprehend what the _fuck_ that groping was about, Rook turns around and starts walking to Grace and the car.

Grace is smirking slightly when Rook gets to her, and she speaks before Grace can make a remark.

“I know you’re working on your people skills, but how ‘bout we don’t talk about whatever the hell that was, because I literally have no idea.” She runs a stressed hand through her hair, feeling jittery all over again. “Let’s just go, I gotta talk with Pastor Jerome.”

Grace snorts and tosses her the car keys.

 

-

 

Fall’s End is crawling with Peggies. Well, former Peggies, since they’re here unarmed and sulking.

“Never thought I’d see something like this,” Grace says when Rook parks right outside the Spread Eagle.

Resistance members hold Peggies— _defectors_ —at gunpoint on the streets, looking more like a precaution than a threat. The defectors don’t look like they’ve run miles, fleeing the wrath of Eden’s Gate for leaving—they look healthy and whole, not a scratch on them.

That means the cult is _letting_ people leave. Goddamn, they really were serious about putting down the sword.

There’s shouting coming from inside the Spread Eagle, muffled voices arguing heatedly. Rook heads into the bar, Grace leaving with a murmur that she needs to go buy ammo, and as the door swings open she sees Mary May and Pastor Jerome tense in the warm, colorful lights of the bar interior.

The debate comes to a pause when they see her.

“Deputy,” Jerome greets smoothly, forcing a smile onto his face. “I was just talking to Mary May about our new friends outside.”

“We should kill them,” Mary May hisses, glaring fiercely at the Peggies out the window. “Why _haven’t_ we killed them yet?”

“Now hold on a second,” Rook says, holding her hands up in a motion to slow down. “They came here seeking asylum. They’ve defected. We gave that last defector asylum, why can’t we do that for the rest?”

“Exactly what I was hoping you’d say,” Jerome says, the tightness in his shoulders loosening. “Glad to see somebody agrees with me.”

“How do you know they’ve changed?” Mary May asks, ponytail whipping back and forth as she looks between Rook and the Pastor. “How do you know they aren’t just pretending to defect, and the fucking _Father_ is still whispering in their ears?”

“We have to have faith,” Jerome says, his tone meant to soothe, to mediate. “I know this is hard for you to accept, but we have to prove we’re better than the cult. What good are we if we execute them without giving them a chance?”

“They’re not with The Father. Trust me on this, I’m pretty sure they aren’t,” Rook says, taking a slow step towards Mary May. She reaches out hesitantly and puts her hand on Mary May’s shoulder, squeezing lightly. “They’ve lost their trust in him. Did you guys hear about the bombs?”

The harsh expression on Mary May’s face softens slightly, melting down. “Heard something about you giving a detonator to Eli Palmer?”

“Joseph was gonna blow up the County, he wanted to make _sure_ the Collapse would happen without me killing his siblings. He told me he still believes the actual Collapse is coming, but later. _This_ was to make sure I wouldn’t have enough time to kill his family. I think Jacob and John told the Peggies. Shit, maybe Joseph himself even confessed it to the Peggies, but something like that can shatter a reputation.”

“So with their belief in The Father and falling apart they took their way out when John Seed made that broadcast,” Jerome finishes for her, thumb and index finger pressing against his chin in thought.

Mary May frowns. “But why would Jacob and John turn against The Father like that? Why try to push him into telling the truth when it was obvious what would happen after that?”

“I think—from what I saw at the church, it seemed like John was having some issues with Joseph and the way he made choices. That could be the reason he’d turn against him? I don’t know.”

“And Jacob? What coulda made him do it?”

Rook tries her best not to grimace. She had deliberately mentioned only John in her answer to avoid talking about him. She shrugs. “Uh, beats me.”

“Deputy,” Jerome tilts his head, glasses slipping down his nose as he looks at her, “we’ve heard some rumors this past week. There any truth to them?”

_Ah, shit._

Rook bites her lip, failing to hold back her grimace this time. A wincing, unsure noise tumbles out of her mouth.

Mary May shrugs her hand off her shoulder and looks at Rook with wide eyes. “Are you serious? You really—”

 _“That’s_ not important right now,” Rook says quickly. “Don’t you think the Peggies outside are the more pressing issue?”

“He’s killed people.”

“Who hasn’t nowadays?”

 _“Innocent_ people.”

“Okay—I understand that this is really a _thing_ that everyone who talks to me wants to go back and forth about, but don’t you think there are more important things right now?”

Pastor Jerome, who’s been quiet for the most part, just looks disappointed in her. Great. “She’s right,” he says, pushing up his glasses. “We have bigger things to worry about.”

“Thank you,” Rook sighs. “That’s actually what I came here to talk to you about. Do you think you can keep Holland Valley a safe space for everyone? Resistance, Peggie, and ex-Peggie alike so long as they’re not looking for a fight?”

Silence. Both Pastor Jerome and Mary May frown, blinking a few times as they soak in what she said.

“That sounds tough,” Mary May says, crossing her arms. “I don’t like it one bit. But.”

“But?”

“But we can try,” Jerome supplies. “If that’s what you think is best.”

“Good,” Rook nods, smiling. “I know John _just_ made that broadcast but things are gonna be changing fast.” She glances out to the defectors on the streets. “Things _are_ changing fast. I don’t know if the fighting is gonna stop completely but I just wanted to make sure we can keep Holland Valley the least warzone-like place in Hope County.”

“Why ask us?” Mary May asks with a sigh. “Why not the Henbane or the Whitetails?”

“The Henbane is mostly Peggie territory, we can just hope Faith listens to her Family. And the Cougars don’t seem like the welcoming type. And do I even need to say why the Whitetails won’t ever put down their guns? They’re a militia, it’s already gonna be hard enough to convince them to not strike while the Peggies are no longer attacking, so it’s definitely _impossible_ to ask them to be fucking friends with them.”

“We’re not putting down our guns either,” Mary May warns. “If any of these Peggies put one _toe_ outta line—”

“I know, I know,” Rook winces. “I just mean that you guys aren’t as trigger happy. You’ve already let the defectors in instead of gunning them down right away, that says something.”

“You need to talk to Eden’s Gate,” Jerome says with a nod. “We need terms. Boundaries.”

“A fuckin’ treaty,” Mary May huffs a disbelieving laugh.

“Talk to them,” Jerome reaffirms with a comforting smile. “We need to be on the same page.”

 

-

 

The setting sun casts a fiery, pinkish glow on the white cult truck. It’s a reaping truck, and judging by its route Rook has stalked it through, it means to go to Joseph’s Compound. Meaning that its radio will be tuned into the Compound’s secure frequency.

After that talk with Pastor Jerome and Mary May ( _that went a lot better than she thought it would, all things considered_ ), Rook needs to talk with Jacob. Well, she doesn’t _need_ to—she needs to talk with at least one of the cult’s leaders to hash this shit out and she needs to give Jacob’s knife back.

Talking with Jacob? Two birds with one stone.

The issue with Jacob though, is that there are some things she wants to talk to him about in private, without the ears of everyone in Hope County listening in on the call. She could easily tune into those _very_ public frequencies each sibling has broadcasted to the county on, but that means everyone will hear. If they come up with a meeting place, she doesn’t want everyone to know. She tried the old frequency that seemed to be direct to Jacob back when he had the Whitetail Mountains, but the cult stopped using that when the Whitetails took everything back, it’s just dead static now. There was the frequency she used with her friends, the private one Grace entrusted to Jacob when Rook was kept underground, but aside from the fact that her friends would be listening in at every moment like the nosy fuckers she knows they are, Jacob never picked up when she tried. He’s probably never tuning back into that line again.

Instead, when she tried calling him over that line, Nick answered, going all _oh hey dep i know you’re looking for jacob and you probably don’t want me answerin’ but the baby just said her first word! kim bring her over here and let dep hear it! her first word was ‘no’, can ya believe? i’m so darn proud i could cry._

Yeah, as much as it irked her when Nick answered, she couldn’t be mad about _that_. It was probably the cutest _no_ she’d ever heard.

So then comes the dumb idea to get hold of a Peggie’s radio, preferably one connected to something more private so fewer people could be listening in. A radio where a Peggie can update their Heralds on their routes and cargo? Definitely should work.

Rook hits the gas on the car. Grace opted to stay in Fall’s End, she took one glance at the look on Rook’s face when she said she’ll have to talk to the cult and decided to hang back.

Rook speeds up, driving alongside the cult vehicle, then speeding ahead to swerve in front of it, blocking the road. The brakes on the reaping truck scream to a stop when the cultist driving slams down on the brakes. Rook hops out of the car, leveling her rifle at the startled Peggie in the driver’s seat.

“Not gonna hurt you!” she shouts, approaching slowly. “Just need to use your radio!”

She hopes the guy in the truck remembers the truce, the ceasefire.

The Peggie’s face turns red as he splutters in his seat. “If you’re not gonna kill me then put the gun down, sinner!”

“No fucking way,” she says, pulling open the door. “It’s a precaution. You’re the ones who said you’re not gonna fight anymore, not us. I’m not gonna hurt you, but I don’t know if I can trust the word of your people yet.”

The Peggie glares at her, hand resting on the gun at his hip. Didn’t get the chance to raise it before she pointed hers in his face. Rook nods at the gun. “Take your hand off the gun. Good. Get out of the truck and lie face down on the road with your hands on your head.”

The Peggie starts to sneer. “You can’t—”

Rook jams the gun closer to his head. “I can. Now go. This’ll only be a few minutes.”

The Peggie grumbles and steps out of the truck, grunting when they start to lay on the ground. Rook looks up and down the road. Good, no one else driving by yet. Without pointing her gun away from the cultist she climbs into the truck and grabs the receiver on the dashboard, the coiled wire connecting it to the built-in radio bouncing and swaying mid-air.

“Don’t fucking move,” she says loudly to the Peggie beneath her. “Or you’re dead before you can blink.”

The Peggie goes completely still on the ground, roughened hands trembling slightly where they’re clasped on the back of his skull. With that, Rook brings the receiver close to her face and clicks down the button. It’s a little slippery—oily and sweaty from being held all the time.

“This is the Junior Deputy,” she says, adding an edge to her voice. “I wanna talk with one of your leaders. Jacob Seed, if he’s there. Over.”

A part of her is hoping that it’s not him who picks up, that maybe she won’t have to deal with that confrontation today if the universe allows it. She waits for a whole excruciating minute, listening to the sound of the wind rustling the trees and some muttered cursing from the Peggie on the ground.

Then, with a crackle of static, someone picks up. _“Deputy.”_

Low and breathy, Jacob Seed in all his audio glory. It’s been a week since she heard that voice. Despite her anxiety over finally talking to him again, she feels the effect of his voice tingle down her spine.

Rook swallows hard. “Jacob. I need to talk to you. In person.”

A pause. _“Where are you right now?”_

His voice sounds controlled, emotionless.

“Some road north of Fall’s End.”

Another long, torturous pause. He must be thinking. Or talking to someone on the other end. Whatever, Rook doesn’t care, she doesn’t. She’s definitely not leaning closer to the radio receiver, definitely _not_ leaning closer to the little speaker his voice is coming out of.

_“There’s an abandoned cottage in the woods northeast of the pumpkin farm. Not too far for both of us.”_

Rae-Rae’s pumpkin farm isn’t too far from where she is now. She can definitely find the cottage he’s talking about.

“Okay,” Rook says, pressing the button so hard on the receiver her nails blanch. “I’ll uh—I can be there in an hour?”

 _“Good,”_ he says, in a way that takes Rook back to under the church, a memory only surfacing now after being hidden under the haze of Bliss and the Song. _You did good._ Jacob holding her. Her friends, unconscious on bloodstained concrete.

She hears him sigh through the static, dragging her back to the now.

 _“An hour,”_ he says, and then he’s gone.

Rook releases a breath and drops the receiver, letting it dangle by its cord, bumping lightly against her shin. She climbs out of the truck, mindful not to step on the Peggie on the ground.

She looks north, squinting at the glare from the sun. _An hour_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok FINE, i guess this isn't the last chapter. i thought, that once again, i could fit way too much shit into it but then the chapter would be an ungodly length so i had to cut it off. next chapter is gonna come soon!! i'm so eager to wrap this up
> 
> thanks for reading and thanks for breaking 500 kudos wow holy shit!!! thank you!!


	17. Chapter 17

There are stars blinking into the sky by the time Jacob shows, early nightfall tinting the sky a grey-blue. Rook pulls the collar of her jacket up to her face, shielding herself from the cool night breeze. She could very easily go inside, where it’s not that much warmer but there’s no wind, but she’s comfortable sitting on the windowsill. Half in half out, she’s got her boot propped on the window frame and her other leg dangling inside the cottage. She fiddles with her shirttail while her free hand rubs at the top of Peaches’ head.

It’s a small, small cottage. Everything’s in one room, save for the small bathroom. About the size of Jacob’s cabin—smaller, even.

Jacob isn’t late, Rook’s just early. She knew she would be, discovering after the brief radio call she was much closer to the woods he spoke of than she thought, so she threw out some special bait and salmon and hoped for company.

No more than a few minutes later, Peaches and Cheeseburger come running excitedly out of the woods, right into her open arms. It always fascinated Rook, how quickly they show when she baits them out, how they _always_ show, as if the fact that she’s miles away from where she last saw them never mattered to her animal companions. She wonders if they’re always _just_ out of her reach, following her when she’s out, keeping a watchful eye. Would’ve explained how Cheeseburger had perfect timing all those weeks ago and saved her from those mercenaries.

She’s comfortable where she is, her back resting against the window frame, so when headlights roll into view and blind her from seeing who’s behind the wheel, she takes her chances and doesn’t draw out a weapon. Sure enough, when the lights go out and Rook blinks spotty after-images out of her vision, it’s Jacob’s tall stature slipping out of the pickup.

And he’s brought a _friend_.

Peaches tenses under her hand, her purring had ceased the moment Jacob rolled in. Cheeseburger, snacking on the carcass of a white-tailed deer a few feet away from her own stolen car, raises his bloody maw from the deer and growls at Jacob’s approaching figure.

Jacob’s little friend ( _the thing barely comes up to his knees_ ) trots past the truck and stops a foot away from Cheeseburger, snarling and snapping in a way that’s frankly adorable.

“Cheese,” Rook calls out, raising her chin but not moving from the window. “Down boy.”

“You brought a zoo with you?” Jacob asks, expression obscured by the dark.

Rook resumes petting the top of Peaches’ head, calming her. “I got here early, wanted some company. Who’s _that?”_

She can make out the turn of his head, maybe the brush of eyelashes flitting down as his posture shifts towards the dog—probably a wolf, this _is_ Jacob, after all—who’s still growling at the grizzly more than twice its size.

“S’a Judge,” Jacob says, matter-of-fact. He whistles, and the growling stops.

“Thought the Whitetails killed all of them?”

“It’s new.” He doesn’t elaborate on it any more than that.

_Okay. Awkward small talk. Great fucking start._

“What’s his name?” Rook says after a pause, clearing her throat. She doesn’t know if the tiny wolf’s male or female, but to Rook there’s just something about dogs ( _wolf, it’s a wolf_ ) that just make Rook think they’re all _good boys_. She recognizes it now, it's the little wolf she saw at Joseph's Compound.

Jacob stops standing rigidly by his pickup to take a few steps closer to the cottage, and Rook can finally make out his expression. He’s squinting, eyebrows knitting together as he regards her with a perplexed look.

“It’s a _Judge_. It doesn’t get a name,” he says, then mutters low that Rook strains to hear his next words. “Why does everyone keep asking that?”

Rook gives Peaches one last pet and swings her other leg over the windowsill, slipping back into the cottage. “Come on, let’s talk in the light.”

The cottage interior is mostly untouched from Hope County’s chaos. Just a broken window on the other side, an unmade bed in the corner with a night table that has all its drawers yanked out, a lot of dried blood on the floor—as if the people who last passed through here dragged a body outside—and some bullet casings scattered on the counter of the kitchenette. Rook sweeps it aside as she hears Jacob outside telling his Judge to _stay_ , and once the counter’s clear enough she hops onto it, letting her feet dangle off the floor. Her rifle bumps uncomfortably into the cabinet behind her, so she removes her rifle from around her shoulder and sets it beside her on the countertop.

Jacob strolls through the door, bits of broken glass crunching beneath his boots. He stops a few feet away from the door, appraising her sitting on the countertop, pale blue eyes guarded. Rook suddenly feels like this was a mistake, because the cottage begins to feel a whole lot smaller with the two of them in here, air heavy around them. Like the walls are closing in at an imperceptible pace.

Now that he’s under the light, Rook can get a better look at him—more specifically, how shitty he looks. Worn down is what he looks like. The circles under his eyes are darker, bruising beneath his lower lid, the lines on his face look more defined, making his scars look harsher than they normally do. It’s like he’s aged another few years or so in the past week alone.

 _When was the last time he slept?_

Neither of them say anything for a moment, the only sound being the door Jacob left open slowly creaking shut. One long, high-pitched whine from the hinges, the two of them just holding each other’s gazes, like they’re trying to see who chickens out of this staring contest first.

Rook loses the staring contest, because Jacob gears up to speak and her goddamn eyes fall to the bob of his Adam's apple. She promptly tears her eyes away from the roll of his throat when she catches herself, a pinched expression making its way onto her face, chiding herself. _Stop that._

“What is it?” Jacob breaks the silence, his voice suddenly so different from how it was just now, like he’s dragged the words across sandpaper.

Rook blinks. “What?”

“What is it you wanted to _talk_ about?”

_Yeah, remember the important things you wanted to talk about instead of just staring at him like a fucking moron?_

“Right,” Rook says, exhaling softly. “Everyone saw that broadcast John made today. I talked with the folks at Fall’s End, and we thought we should work out some terms.”

Jacob quirks a brow. “Terms.”

“I mean, there are things that need to be hashed out. Figured I’d talk to a fucking Herald about it. And,” she winces slightly, “I guess I already talk to you. Sort of.”

Jacob sighs and takes a couple steps back, putting more space between them, and moves to sit in one of the chairs scattered around the small, wooden dining table across where Rook is at the kitchenette. The chair creaks under his weight as he sits sideways on it, using the backrest as an armrest instead and leaning himself against the wall. His red rifle dangles loosely on his shoulder, the grip bumping into a chair leg.

“Okay,” he says, gesturing out with a heavy hand then dropping it back onto his lap. “Say your piece.”

“Well first, I just wanted to ask, is Joseph alive?”

He stiffens. “He’s alive.”

Rook shakes her head. “No, I didn’t mean—I’m not gonna try anything, especially now that the fighting is dying down. I was just curious.”

Jacob says nothing in return, just looks back at her with an expression that’s like a brick fucking wall. _Christ, he’s really done with me and my shit, huh?_

“I need to know how things are with... your people,” she says after a breath. She doesn’t say _cult_ because the goal is to keep things light. “We got that broadcast with John, yeah, but the Resistance wants to know just how things are operating with you guys now. You know, so we don’t have to worry about you killing us in our sleep or something. We’ve… we got defectors all lined up at Fall’s End. They look genuine, but we’re not letting down our guard. If you guys want the fighting to stop, you gotta tell me if it’s for real, because I’m practically the only person vouching for you guys right now.”

He barely moves during her rambling and she wonders if he’s even breathing. Her expectant silence seems to rouse him this time. He blinks and leans forward in his seat. “Where’d ya want me to start? Before or after Joseph woke up?”

“When did he wake up?” Rook asks, glad he’s finally talking. She raises her eyebrows—she didn’t even know Joseph was comatose. Makes sense, though.

“Today.”

“Shit, could you just, like, summarize everything?”

Jacob’s unreadable exterior breaks for a moment to give her a look of irritation, but he speaks nonetheless. “Joseph’s laying low. The Flock ain’t ever gonna stop calling him The Father, but he’s retiring his position for a while, at least while he heals up. Think it finally hit everyone that things aren’t going great for both sides.”

“So…”

“So, the Project just wants to _be_ , right now. No tricks, no games, John was serious in his broadcast. We leave you alone, you leave us the fuck alone.”

Rook nods, glad that there wasn’t any hidden motive to the broadcast. Then, realizing what Jacob’s said, she frowns. “If Joseph isn’t leading anymore—who is?”

Jacob’s stoic expression twitches. “Haven’t discussed it. But if I had to take a guess? Faith.”

Rook thinks back to the angelified Marshal dropped on the doorstep of Hope County Jail, thinks about how Faith, with her Bliss tricks, has always been hard to topple. There’s always been something off about her sweet little sister vibe, like a carefree flower child but the flowers are poisonous. “Shit. That’s gonna make things hard. The Cougars were already hard to control this week, but getting them to hold back when _Faith_ is in lead—”

“She’s not planning an assault. John and I got her to stand down after the Marshal. It was shitty timing, s’all it was,” he interrupts her fretting, running a tired hand down his face. “Faith is the one the Flock looks to now as a voice and savior, s’what I meant. With The Father stepping backstage, the Flock needs someone.”

Rook relaxes at that, shoulders slumping. “So she’s the new figurehead.”

“I wouldn’t let her hear you say _‘figurehead.’_ She’s not quite that. If Faith had things her way, there’d be a lot more bloodshed and a lot more Bliss. She’s capable and she’s _listening_ to us, so she’s taken to picking up the slack around leadership instead.”

“Great,” Rook nods, then bites her lip, worrying at it. “So… we’re good? You guys are really backing off?”

Jacob’s gone still, blue eyes locked on her face. She thinks he might be staring at where she’s sunk her incisors into her bottom lip. Then he tears his eyes away from her, glancing at the ground with a small exhale. “We’re good so long as you get your fucking people to settle down, yeah.”

She sighs, that’s gonna be tough, but, “I can do it.”

“Good,” he nods, voice going hoarse. The chair creaks as he stands, and Rook’s arms and legs act out of their own volition, launching her off the counter to stand and grab his sleeve as he goes for the door.

“Wait,” she says, not quite sure what she’s gonna say next. She lets go of his jacket sleeve when he stops and takes a few steps back so she can give herself room to breathe. “Just wait a second.”

Rook didn’t even know it was possible, but the tightness in Jacob’s shoulders grows _increasingly_ more rigid. He turns to face her so fucking slowly that Rook can’t help but be reminded of when she first spoke to him in his cabin at Joseph’s Compound. She knows he’s gritting his teeth together, from the muscle working in his jaw. His eyes are darting around, scanning her face—the same look from the caves when she thought he’d try to crack open her skull to see the contents of her thoughts.

Then his eyes drop down to her hip, and Rook remembers.

“Your knife,” she practically rasps, like she’s suddenly forgotten how to use her voice. She takes the blade from her hip and wraps her fingers around the flat side, holding the grip out to Jacob. “You should have it back.”

“Y’just keep it with you?” He asks, voice so much lower than it was before. Like a magnet, Rook’s eyes snap to his throat as he swallows hard.

“Yeah,” she says, dragging her eyes away _again_ , “didn’t—didn’t know when I’d run into you to give it back.”

She nudges her hand forward again, as if to remind both of them that she’s still holding out the knife. Jacob's eyes flit down to the knife, then back at her face. Slowly, he reaches out to take it. It's eerily quiet, the only sound heard is the rustle of fabric as Jacob moves his arm. It’s a weighted exchange, somehow something as mundane as returning an item once— _thrice_ —borrowed leaves Rook hyper-aware of her surroundings, of the statue of a person in front of her.

He gives the blade a once over, and Rook feels her legs moving again, stepping away, back back back until she’s stepping on the broken glass scattered in the middle of the cottage. The crunch of it makes Jacob’s gaze snap to her again, putting the knife away.

“Something on your mind?” he asks gruffly.

Rook exhales a shaky laugh, running a hand through her stressed, semi-tangled hair. “Yeah. Yeah, there’s actually a lot on my mind right now.”

Jacob frowns, something in his eyes that Rook can’t read. “I’ll leave you alone, Deputy, if that’s what’s bothering you. Hell, with the ceasefire, you don’t ever have to see me again.”

“No—just wait a minute!” Rook shuts her eyes at how panicked she sounds. He’s so walled off, so eager to leave, and that makes what she’s trying to figure out how to say even harder. “That’s not what I want—the ceasefire.”

“Thought you didn’t want any more war.” Jacob steps further into the room—a good sign she hasn’t fucked up too badly just yet—and leans against the edge of the kitchen counter. It could almost be seen as leisurely, relaxed, if it weren’t for the everything _else_ about him.

“I don’t. I didn’t mean it like that—I don’t want _just_ a ceasefire,” she grits out. _Just fucking spit it out._ “Both sides coexisting is great but are there still gonna be boundaries? Territories? Could we drive through each other’s outposts and just nod and wave? Or are we all gonna be tiptoeing around imaginary lines? The county’s changing fast, and this is—fuck, this is selfish but I want the change to be better for us.”

It’s ridiculous, she knows, that when she spoke to Adelaide just a few hours earlier she was so keen on ending it. Now, here with Jacob, when she doesn’t even know if _it_ is even alive, if she was planning to kill an already-dead thing, she wants to fucking reach into the coffin and pull it back out.

“The Resistance already has most of the county, Dep,” Jacob says, his posture growing more irate. “Don’t know what else—”

“No, no, not—” Rook makes a frustrated sound, stepping all the way back until the back of her legs hit something. She sits down, the softness of the bed useless to calm her. She drops her head into her hands for a moment, then looks back at Jacob. “I didn’t mean the Resistance, Jacob. I meant _us_.”

Jacob’s eyes flash, head turning sharply to look at her dead on. He doesn’t move, still as a stone save for the clench of his jaw.

“And what,” he says between bone white teeth, “is it you want for _us_ , huh?”

The words are slow, careful, and sharp as a knife. The whole time they’ve been in this cottage, Jacob’s had this sentinel-like gait to him, along with the strong, predatory way he shrinks every room he’s in, but the way Jacob bares his teeth at her now makes Rook realize she’s read him all wrong. She would never think Jacob Seed could be scared of anything, but the ire in his eyes is that of a wounded animal, snapping its teeth in self-defense. A _scared_ animal.

_Scared of what?_

She’s been staring at him too long, transfixed. It’s seemed to raise his hackles higher, he nearly growls when he speaks again. “Just say what you’re gonna say, Deputy, so I can leave and do something better with my time.”

“I want things to be better in the county so _this_ doesn’t have to end bloody,” Rook says, doing her best to stop her voice from wavering. She points her finger back and forth between them, ‘ _this’_ floating somewhere in the expanse between them. “So… so that maybe this doesn’t have to end at all, if you’re up for it.”

And then Jacob’s shoulders just _sag_. The wall falls, his hardened expression crumbling off his face. Relief, that’s what it is. _Relief_.

“Y’should have started with that.”

Before Rook can say anything else, take back her words in case she’s _completely_ misread the situation, Jacob’s crossed the distance between them. So fucking quiet and so fucking fast, the mattress dips when he sits next to her on the bed, one calloused hand tangling into her hair as he holds the back of her head and surges forward to kiss her.

Surprised by the suddenness of it all, Rook gasps against his lips, bunching his shirt and dog tags in a closed fist. He sighs into her response, murmuring her name as his other hand snakes around her waist to pull her closer. It’s slow, nothing like the searing, needy kisses they’ve shared in the past. Not like the slow, brief kiss before she left his cabin. Despite Rook’s growing enthusiasm, Jacob takes his time, kissing her slow and deep, savoring every taste.

She doesn’t know how much time passes like that—minutes maybe, just clutching each other tightly and kissing slow, making the blood in Rook’s veins feel warm and gooey. Unbearably sweet, but jarringly intimate in the same way kissing Jacob always is. He breaks away, lips glistening and kiss-swollen. He rests his palm high on her neck, thumb brushing along her bottom lip as he looks at her, pupils dilated. The movement of his thumb, the closeness, the quiet, takes her right back to the cave all those weeks ago.

“You should have start with that,” he says again, voice gravelly and low. It sends a shiver up her spine. His thumb hooks under her jaw, pushing lightly to encourage her to tilt her head up higher. Rook does just that, never taking her eyes off of him, drinking in the details of his face now that they’re so close again.

“I didn’t think you’d want to,” Rook says quietly. She smacks her lips, tongue swiping along her bottom lip—a somewhat nervous tick, but she delights in the way Jacob’s eyes fervently latch onto the movement of her mouth. “After the church, it just felt like too much changed too fast. Like—like this wouldn’t work anymore.”

“And here I was thinkin’ that…” He scoffs, trailing off and eyes drifting somewhere to her right, unfocused.

“That what?”

His eyes snap back to hers, so, so blue. “Nothing.”

Rook wants to protest, to push at her curiosity, but Jacob dips down to capture her lips again, the hand on her neck squeezing lightly. The question poised on her tongue silenced by his lips, his teeth.

Jacob’s hands wander slowly under her shirt—around her waist, between her shoulder blades, trailing a slow-crawling warmth that seeps into her skin. Rook takes initiative, pushing against him, matching his slow movements—as if they’re in a bubble and if they move too much it might burst, might break the spell. She pushes him, urging him down onto the bed, maneuvering her leg over to straddle him. _So_ ready for a repeat of his cabin.

Jacob groans, a wounded sound rumbling in his throat when he shimmies up the bed on his back some more, Rook crawling on top and pressing all of her weight into him. She probably weighs nothing to him, but the pressure, the warmth of each other’s bodies is very much wanted.

Rook tears her mouth away from him, pushing him back down when his lips try to follow after her and buries her face into the crook of his neck, kissing and nipping at roughened skin, welcoming the scrape of his beard on her cheek—a sensation she’s missed. Jacob’s hands continue their roaming, snaking down to grip her ass with both hands, squeezing. She snickers into his neck, moving back up to catch his lips again. She feels his hands move, slip into the rear pockets of her jeans, and a soft crinkling sound has her stopping.

Jacob stops as well, frowning at her when she pulls back. She feels his hand move in her pocket, feels the faint pressure of whatever it is that’s inside. His mirrored confusion shifts as she feels him get ahold of whatever’s in her pocket.

“Had high hopes, huh?” Jacob asks her, voice low and husky. A smirk grows on his face, just as she feels his hand move, removing whatever was.

“I don’t remember putting anything in my pockets,” Rook says with a confused frown, eyeing his smirk with skepticism.

“Really, now?” He hums, bringing his hand up between their faces. Spread like a fan between his fingers are several packets of condoms.

She definitely _doesn’t_ remember putting that in her pocket. Where does anyone even _find_ that shit in the county, now? Every store’s been raided, and she’s even joked with Sharky and Hurk that the cult probably burned them all or something. Not that she’s actively sought out condoms and other kinds of birth control, but it’s definitely among one of the things Rook considered extinct—endangered at the least—in Hope County.

“Mother _fucker_ ,” Rook curses, feeling her face heat up. Outrage and mortification suddenly flashing through her when she remembers just _who_ it was who grabbed her ass earlier today. “Those—Don’t look at me like that, I didn’t put those there.”

_What the fuck, Addie?_

_Just a little parting gift._

The devil works hard, but Adelaide Drubman works harder. Who knows, maybe the shortage in the county is because Adelaide’s hoarded them all to herself.

“I hate her,” Rook moans, dropping her head into Jacob’s chest. “I hate her and now I have to thank her.”

“Lemme guess,” Jacob says, chest rumbling under Rook, an auburn eyebrow quirking up. “Drubman?”

“How’d you know?”

“Met her, remember? Unfortunately.”

“I can’t believe this is my life right now.”

“She’s a friend of yours,” Jacob says, moving to sit up, taking Rook up with him. He presses a lazy kiss against her lips as he removes his jacket. “Wouldn’t want her efforts t’go to waste.”

“You’re an asshole,” Rook snorts, but shucks her jacket off nonetheless.

Jacob hums in response, dropping the packets on the sheets next to them and grabbing the back of her thighs, pulling her closer. He cups her face with warm, warm hands and kisses her again, teeth sinking into her bottom lip.

Rook’s hands drift down from his shoulders and begin to unbuckle his belt.

 

-

 

Somehow, things actually work out in the county. Rook can’t really believe it—dwelling on _how_ things actually went well gives her a headache—so she accepts the peace in stride.

It’s not total peace, of course. Just as John said in his broadcast two months ago: there will be rebellion. Sure enough, there is. Two months since the broadcast, a month and a half since plans for peace finally started taking effect, and here’s Hope County now, preparing for the Collapse _together_.

The Whitetail’s have expanded into Jacob’s bunker—no longer _Jacob’s_ , but that of the Wolf’s Den. When talks began to surface since John’s broadcast, Eli and Tammy made it clear from the start that they are _not_ accepting defectors, they are _not_ letting anyone aside from the Whitetails into their doomsday bunker. They’ve become even more of isolationists than before. Rook stills sees them from time to time, but things have been tense ever since word got out about her and Jacob. Rook doesn’t blame them at all since, y’know, she is, in fact, sleeping with their fucking archnemesis.

Rook’s not completely alone in being on the receiving end of Whitetail disapproval, though. _Staci_ bounced right back into Jacob’s shadow the first chance he got. He seems better now, becoming Jacob’s right hand—no longer the squirrely, half-assistant half-trophy following Jacob around out of survival and obedience, but stronger, seeking purpose and knowing exactly who will give him that.

It surprised Rook, visiting an outpost by the Henbane one day where Jacob was overseeing operations—her eyes drifting away from him, his Judge, to see Staci fucking Pratt standing right next to him, so far away from the Whitetail Mountains. Directing Peggies carrying a bunch of cargo, standing tall—he’s come a long way.

Faith’s bunker is Peggie-only territory. Not by any rule or agreement, just from the fact that that place is fucking _filled_ with Bliss, and no one outside of Peggies wants to be near that. The Cougars have been slowly vacating the Henbane, the Jail, moving into the Whitetail’s bunker where there’s room for anyone who isn’t a Peggie. Jacob hasn’t said anything to her about it, but Rook has heard that Joseph will be staying in that bunker with Faith. Makes sense, the Peggie bunker needs their _Father_.

The situation in Holland Valley is one that Rook is proud of. Pastor Jerome and Mary May kept their word, creating a safe zone for _everyone_. Joey bailed, couldn’t look Rook in the eye, couldn’t accept that she and Staci choose to willingly hang around Jacob, couldn’t accept that Pastor Jerome and Mary May are making some sort of strained peace with John. She just upped and left one morning muttering that she’s going to the Whitetails. It hurt, watching Joey leave. She and Staci don’t talk about it. Nor do they talk about how Whitehorse trusts them but can barely look either of them ( _Rook especially_ ) in the eye now.

With the news broadcasts here and there they hear from outside, folks don’t call it _the Collapse_ , but they’re piling into their bunkers, end-fucking-nigh with natural disasters and heated political climates all over the world.

To everyone’s surprise, John is going to stay in his bunker in Holland Valley. The fact that _nobody_ is gunning him down on sight still has Rook reeling over a month later. Nobody’s holding hands and singing fucking kumbaya, but it’s _civil_. John’s bunker is a mix of Peggies who follow John, defectors, and Resistance who have either learned to get along with everyone or just can’t stand the isolationist nature of the Whitetails. Somehow, by some fucking voodoo no doubt, it’s a goddamn _community_.

Hell, Rook’s got even a room in John’s bunker. Nick and Kim already had a place there—John had always been eager to let them in but now that the governing power of Holland Valley is Pastor Jerome, Mary May, _and_ John Seed himself, the Ryes have decidedly made the bunker their home for the apocalypse.

It’s interesting, that’s for sure, especially whenever Nick is muttering variations of _kim lemme hold the baby so i won’t go over there and sucker punch that bastard_ every time John is within line of sight.

The rest of her friends have got their places in John’s bunker as well, a unanimous agreement that they’d all like to stick together. It’s great, really, it’s just so _weird_ to Rook. The bunker she’d twice fled from, where bodies were strung up like Hannibal-esque art, is now clean and habitable with no trace of gore on the walls. People smiling at each other in greeting, the sound of baby Rye giggling when Rook passes by the Ryes’ quarters, John _fucking_ Seed assisting the Pastor with everyone’s moving process.

Like, what the _fuck._

Rook’s not gonna complain though, not gonna question the absurdity of peace, because this is probably the best Hope County’s ever gonna get.

Recently, rebels have been ambushing supply trucks to the bunker. _Peggies_ , is what Resistance scouts have reported to Jacob. Ever since there became a clear divide between those who wanted to move on and those who _didn’t_ , Jacob reclaimed his role as security in the county—now protecting the joined cultists and Resistance against threats from those who want things to go back to the way they were before.

There’s still a lot of friction between him and most Resistance members, but everyone’s too scared of him to disobey orders.

“This is a shitty idea, Rook.” Staci’s voice crackles through her radio. Rook keeps her binoculars on him, watching from behind some trees as his truck approaches the ambush point.

“I second that.” Another gravelly voice complains from her radio speaker. She snickers, getting a glimpse of Sharky pouting next to Staci in the passenger seat.

She’s about to reply when Jacob snatches her radio and brings it close to his face. “Quit your fucking whining and keep driving.”

“Yessir,” Staci says back automatically, while through the static Rook hears Sharky murmur _dickhead._

“You couldn’t have brought Grace or somethin’?” Jacob asks her. Rook doesn’t put down her binoculars but she can feel Jacob’s irritation next to her. “Black, even. _Anyone_ but Boshaw?”

“Would you rather I brought Hurk?”

A beat. He must be scowling. “ _Fine._ But if Boshaw fucking sets the truck on fire—”

Rook grins. “Oh, give him a chance.”

He scoffs, and Rook rolls her eyes. She lowers the binoculars for a moment to tug Jacob down for a kiss. Just a quick press of lips, then she pulls away. “Feel better now?”

Jacob snorts, lightly squeezing her hip. “Just watch the truck.”

Rook looks through the binoculars again. Sure enough, the ambushers are here. A cult pickup with _BELIEVER_ painted across the doors bursts out of the woods on the other side, swerving in front of Staci and Sharky, blocking their path.

“Uh, Dep, you still there?” Sharky radios. She sees him and Staci pull out their sidearms.

“Yeah, coming to you,” Rook responds, putting away her binoculars. She clips her radio back to her belt and throws a nod in Jacob’s direction before she goes.

Jacob nods in return, readying his red sniper rifle.

Two ATVs emerge from the woods opposite as well, flanking Sharky and Staci in the truck. A woman steps out of the pickup, hair dyed fiery at the ends. From her clothes to a messy, simplified version of the Eden’s Gate Insignia painted on her face, Rook can tell she’s a cult VIP. _Was_ a cult VIP.

Rook ducks down, slowly moving from bush to bush as the ex-Peggies-but-still-cultists aim their array of weapons at her friends.

“Give us your supplies willingly,” the ex-VIP commands, projecting her voice to all on the road, “and maybe we’ll spare you, if our baptists deem you worthy.”

“We’re with the Project,” Staci says firmly from his rolled down window, adding an extra edge to his voice.

“There _is_ no Project,” the ex-VIP hisses, she levels her rifle at him. “The Project is dead, corrupted by _sinners_. Those who were truly Faithful _know_ that, and we will take back what faith was lost.”

Rook inches close to a haggard man on one of the ATVs, just close enough to the roadside bushes that she can get a good angle with her throwing knives.

“You’ve been attacking this route for some time,” Staci says coolly. “We can’t let you continue.”

“You won’t survive the Collapse. You and your people are not Strong enough. You’re not ready.”

Staci pauses. Rook can’t see his face from where she is, can barely see anything through the foliage except for this cultist’s god-awful haircut against the sunlight.

“We’ll see about that,” he finally says, cold as ice. Then static quietly crackles from her radio in stilted intervals. Jacob must be hearing it from his radio as well. It’s Staci or Sharky pressing their radio button three times—the signal.

A shot cracks through the terse, western standoff-like silence, the unmistakable sound of Jacob’s rifle ripping a bullet through the air. Rook launches out of the bush, throwing a knife at the terrible haircut on that cultist’s head—just in time to see the ex-VIP crumple to the ground with deep, dark red leaking from a point on her forehead.

Staci and Sharky are out of the truck, guns raised and suddenly ducking down when bullets rain their way. Rook throws another knife at one of the cultists by the pickup, but he doesn’t fall. She steps over the now-dead bad haircut cultist and pries her other knives out of his head.

Someone starts screaming, the next thing Rook sees is a woman wailing as she runs around wildly in the middle of the firefight, engulfed in flames. _Ah, Sharky._

Rook dives behind the ATV, hearing the pinging of bullets bouncing off its exterior. She listens, trying to single out the one gun firing at her among the cacophony of bullets, waiting for a pause, a reload time. After a moment, she thinks she hears her chance. She peeks out from over the ATV, her 45/70 in tow, and squints down the sights.

Two shots go into the tail end of the pickup. The third one hits, right into the cultist’s hairline when he tries to peek.

She hears another crack of Jacob’s rifle, but the only sound that follows is glass breaking.

Another cultist, behind the pickup next to the one she just killed, peeks around the front of the pickup, out of her line of sight. He’s engaged in a duel of bullets with Staci, who hides behind the cover of the ATV on the truck’s other flank.

That just leaves one more from the mental headcount she had done. But where—

“Po-Po, get down!”

Rook ducks down just in time to miss a metal baseball bat swinging over her head. She kicks the cultist’s legs out from under him, and the bat slips from his hands as he falls, rolling away from both of them as his hands come down to catch on the asphalt. Rook aims her rifle, but the cultist recovers too fast, tackling her to the ground with a guttural screech.

The cultist’s hands wrap around her throat, pressing down hard. Rook snarls, claws at his hands and face, brings her knee violently into his gut. She hears Jacob’s shots ring out, hitting the ATV—it must be blocking them both from his view.

Rook knees the cultist again, he barely flinches, spit foaming in the corners of his mouth in some sort of rabid concentration. This time, she knees the cultist at his groin, he grunts but that’s the only reaction. It’s getting harder to breathe, and Rook would _hate_ if her last thoughts were her wondering if the cult made people into eunuchs with how this guy doesn’t react to anything.

In another futile attempt, she sends her fist up into his throat. The cultist does a double-take, and draws back slightly. _Fucking finally._ But before she can act out her next attack, there’s a blast and part of the cultist’s head flies off in bloody chunks.

Blood and brains splatter onto Rook’s face and she blinks in surprise, just frozen there for a moment, ears ringing. Then what’s left of the cultist’s head still attached to his body starts to spark, and then there’s a burst of _fire_.

“Oh shit, oh fuck.” Rook pushes the corpse off of her and rolls away just as the fire engulfs the body completely.

There’s a hand hanging in front of her face, adorned with rings and a coiled bracelet.

“Up and at ‘em, chica,” Sharky grins down at her, looking positively _giddy_ as warm light from the burning corpse dances on the side of his face.

“Thanks, Shark,” she breathes, blood cooling on her face. She grabs his hand and lets him yank her up. “Is Stac—”

Staci appears from around the truck, sidearm resting down. “I’m good, Rook.” His eyebrows shoot up at the sight of her. “Are you?”

Rook makes a face, bringing her jacket sleeve to wipe the blood off her face. God, there are still some brain chunks stuck close to her hairline. “I’m gross, that’s for sure. Did you kill that last guy?”

Staci grimaces. “He didn’t really give me a choice.”

“Well shit, there goes the plan,” Sharky remarks, reloading his shotgun.

“It’ll be fine, I think. It wasn’t much of a plan to begin with,” Rook shrugs, wiping the rest of the blood off her face. It’s not a lot, but just the thought of walking around the rest of the day with someone’s brains clinging to her has her losing her appetite. She glances at Sharky, gesturing to her face. He scrutinizes her for a moment, then flashes her a small smile and a nod. _All clear._

There’s a rustle behind her. Staci, standing in front of her, doesn’t react to the noise so it can’t be any threat sneaking up from behind.

“Thought we wanted to leave one alive.” Jacob’s voice rumbles from behind her, standing close enough now that her shoulder brushes against him. “These idiots don’t look alive.”

Rook grimaces, turning to look up at him. “We had to improvise.”

“It at least leaves a message,” Staci says, standing taller, voice deeper now that Jacob is in proximity. “We have no survivors to interrogate but when their people come by to check on them they’ll know we don’t think twice before putting them down.”

“The message is that they fuck with us, and they’re barbeque,” Sharky agrees, the corner of his mouth quirking up into a smirk when he glances at the dying flames.

Jacob pinches the bridge of his nose, brow twitching with impatience. He gives her a private look that Rook has seen one too many times now, whenever Sharky’s being… well, _Sharky_.

“Yeah,” Rook sighs, considering the mess of bodies. “That could work.”

“It’ll have to do.” Jacob lets his hand fall back to his side, wrapping around the strap of his rifle. “Peaches,” Staci’s face twitches in annoyance at the nickname, “take the supply truck to the bunker. We’re done here.”

“What about me?” Sharky asks.

“Go with Pratt,” is Jacob’s curt reply.

Sharky looks at Rook. “Where are you gonna go, Dep? Need me to tag along?”

“I’m actually going up to the Whitetails,” Rook says sheepishly, watching Sharky’s face fall. “Tammy wants a word with me.”

If she plays her cards right up there, she can probably get the Whitetails to take in Peaches and Cheeseburger. She _knows_ they have space, plus the Fowler brothers are up there, and they were Cheeseburger’s original caretakers. She’ll get them cared for in the expanded Wolf’s Den and keep Boomer with her in John’s bunker, he can hang out with Jacob’s Judge. _All of my fluffy babies will be safe._

Sharky hates the mountains and he isn’t the biggest fan of the Wolf’s Den either. He pouts, face wrinkling at the prospect of following her up to the mountain region. “Fine, okay, I guess I’ll go with Pratt.”

He follows after Staci back to the supply truck, leaning down to pull Rook into a half-hug when he brushes past her.

Rook gives him a squeeze. “I’ll see you later, try not to start any fires around the supplies, yeah?”

Sharky pulls back and grins in a way that says he’s definitely _not_ going to try, but Rook grins back all the same. Once the engine of the truck purrs to life, Staci and Sharky driving away, Rook sets to looting the bodies.

“Where are you heading after this?” She asks Jacob, briefly glancing up from the corpse she’s rifling through.

Jacob stands by the ambusher’s pickup. He’s inspecting the contents of the truck bed, one hand scratching his beard in thought. “Think I’ll follow after Peaches and Boshaw—some of the shit here is worth bringing to John’s bunker.”

Neither of them have really said anything about where Jacob’s gonna be staying when the time comes. He could easily join Faith and Joseph in the Henbane bunker, protect the old and new leader of what remains of the Project, but he’s been hanging around John more often than not. With the heavy presence of Resistance in John’s bunker as well, Jacob is probably taking it to himself to watch over his youngest brother’s well-being. That, and Rook is staying in that bunker too.

They haven’t talked about it, and they probably don’t have to. Rook’s been sprucing up her future home in the bunker for two. They already sleep together most nights anyway, sometimes really just _sleeping_. Jacob looks a lot better now with somewhat regulated sleep.

They’re on the same page, she knows it. Rook’s been wondering what life will be like in there. _Seven years_ , christ she hopes everything will be okay. She hopes everything will be okay for her and Jacob too, though she doesn’t like to dwell on that, to worry on _what ifs_ and worst case scenarios of bunker life.

Back in the car she’s hidden in the woods near the ambush point, she goes through her haul.

She got some ammo, some _oregano_ —unexpected from these cultists but welcome, she’s got plans with Sharky or Jess ( _or both_ ) later today covered now—along with about $63 total from the bodies. That puts her at… fuck, she can’t remember the exact amount she has saved now but she’s so close now to buying that seaplane. It’s dumb, since they’ve all embraced the fact that the world is ending sometime in the next couple months yet she _still_ wants to spend all her cash on a plane. Fuck it, everyone has ridiculous goals here and there.

Rook pulls out onto the road, driving slowly by the ambush point where Jacob’s shifting around cargo in the bed of the pickup. The car’s she’s plucked off the road is nice, modern—built in seat warmers and buttons on the driver’s side to control each window. There’s a dent in the car’s tail end, a blood splatter and small crack on the rear window, but otherwise the vehicle’s managed to stay untouched from Hope County’s chaos.

She stops right by Jacob, lurching forward slightly when she runs over one of the bodies on the road. She rolls down the passenger seat window, leaning slightly over the divider to peer through it just as he turns around.

He sets a box down, the stoic expression on his face twitching slightly, eyes crinkling and teeth flashing. “What’s that look on your face for?”

“I’m gonna buy a _seaplane_ ,” Rook singsongs, peering at him from under her brow. The car’s too low and he’s too damn tall, the most she can see of his face from where he stands is up to just his eyebrows. She juts her bottom lip out, considering her words as she shrugs. “Well, I’m gonna buy a seaplane _soon_. I gotta properly count my money later.”

“You know y’could just steal a plane, right?” Jacob says sternly, but his beard twitches as he smirks. He steps closer to the car, leaning down to rest his arms on the open window, scarred face now in full view. “There’s shit all over the county for you to steal—and you’re stealin’ cars already.”

“Yeah,” Rook says, wrinkling her nose when he doesn’t share her excitement. “But I want to _own_ a plane. I’ve been dreaming about one since I stole Nick’s plane back from your brother’s ranch.”

“If I remember properly, you stole one of my planes too. Why don’t y’just take that? Wouldn’t be stealing if I’m letting you keep it.”

“I, uh, I crashed that plane. Like five minutes after I stole it,” Rook chuckles nervously, then grins wider when she sees his face fall into a displeased frown. “Oops, right?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t get a plane then, huh?” He deadpans, gesturing candidly with a dismissive flick of his hand. Those blue eyes narrow slightly. “Since you’re prone to being a shitty pilot.”

“ _Wow_ , say that to my face, why don’t you? Asshole,” Rook scoffs, jaw dropping in offense.

“I _am_ saying it to your face. Or have you gone blind now?” He muses, eyes twinkling with cruel amusement. “Don’t think you should be driving _or_ piloting with shit coordination.”

She scowls at him, leaning back. “Tread carefully, Seed. You’re lucky I’m like in love with you or something, otherwise—”

Oh _shit_.

Rook’s eyes go wide just about the same time Jacob’s do, realizing what she just said. Rook’s barely even _thought_ about shit like that, and now all of a sudden she’s blurting that out? _Okay, time to go. Time to go, time to go, time to go._

Jacob’s wide, wide eyes flash, and then he’s opening his mouth to say something. Rook doesn’t give him time to say it. She quickly locks the car doors, then slams two fingers down onto one of the window buttons, and suddenly Jacob’s flinching back to stop himself from getting caught in the closing window.

“What the—open the window, Deputy,” Jacob growls, the threat in his tone growing muffled just as the window fully closes. He tries the door, locked, because she just did that. His lip curls up into a desperate snarl as he pounds a fist on the window. _“Dep!”_

Rook laughs nervously, hysterically, the sound becoming _more_ strangled when she realizes she can’t just speed off because the mountains are in the _other_ direction. She’s gotta back up and turn around. Maddeningly, despite the fact that she _knows_ the road is empty, she fucking pauses to check the rearview mirror. _Clear. Of course it’s fucking clear, dumbass, now GO._

Then a sharp _crack!_ startles Rook. She looks next to her to see Jacob attacking the window with the end of his rifle, a wild look on his face. Fuck, if she tries to drive away now he’ll probably just shoot holes into the tires. Not that she has any time to do that now, because she’s too busy bracing herself from shattering glass.

Glass flies onto the divider, onto the passenger seat, and thankfully he hasn’t destroyed the whole window, so it’s just enough glass that only a few shards fall on Rook’s lap. Just enough for her to brush away with a bat of her hand. There’s a faint clatter outside the car as Jacob drops his rifle to the ground and reaches into the punched in hole of the window, barely avoiding sharp points of glass. He flicks open the locking mechanism and Rook just locks it again with the controls next to her.

His eyes snap to her, a vicious glare in them when he unlocks the door again just for her to do the same thing. “Open the _fucking_ door, Deputy.”

Rook forces a casual, tight smile. “I think I’m fine just sitting in this car by myself, thanks.”

He hisses her name, curt and impatient, “Open the door or I’ll break the rest of this damn car to find another way in.”

He unlocks the door one more time, and with his other hand yanks the door open just before Rook slams down on the locks again. _Dammit._ He retracts his arm from the window and swings the door open wider to sweep the glass off the seat and hop inside, slamming the door shut.

There’s a pause, a brief moment of silence from the hysteria. Jacob slowly turns his head to look at her, the movement almost cat-like. Rook has gotten used to his way-too-intense stares over the last two months, but _god_ , this is something entirely different. The way he’s looking at her simultaneously has Rook wanting to run as far away as she can and wanting to just jump his bones right there.

“So,” Rook clears her throat, breaking the silence, “listen, that was—”

Jacob cuts off whatever she was saying with a kiss, lips bruising right onto hers. Then he pulls away, gone too soon, leaving the air cold on Rook’s face. When she opens her eyes, his eyes are almost black, pupils turned into wide, black holes.

His voice is rough, scratched out. So low, just above a whisper, but the demand in his tone raises the hairs on the back of her neck. “Get in the back seat.”

“Jac—”

_“Dep.”_

Rook doesn’t try to argue. It’s awkward, just the sound of the both of them breathing, the rustle when Rook climbs out of the driver’s seat, throws a leg over the divider and anchors her hands on the seats to pull herself through.

Once she’s there, settled back against the seats, it gets even more ridiculous when Jacob, a fucking mountain of a man, tries to squeeze through the front seats to climb over to the back seats as well. It’s outrageous, _unnecessary_ , when the door was right there. He could have just climbed out of the car and back in, but he’s already too far gone in this endeavour for Rook to suggest otherwise. During his clambering, Rook bites her tongue, suppressing the need to just _laugh_ , and instead picks up the weapons she’s left on the seats and dumps them onto the driver’s seat, making room for Jacob.

When he makes it across, he doesn’t even bother to sit. Jacob is immediately on Rook, urging her to lie down across the seats, hovering over her with his lips suctioned to her throat and a knee already nudging between her legs. The size of the car makes it awkward and cramped, but despite the fact that they’re an inch from falling off the seats, it feels _right_.

He still hasn’t addressed her accidental confession, but she’s _definitely_ alright with just fucking in the car if it means they don’t have to talk about it.

He moves up from her neck, trailing wet kisses until he finds his way back to her mouth, tongue swiping her lips and groaning when she grants entrance. Rook tangles a hand in the scraggly hair of his beard, the other at the hair atop his head, tugging lightly, getting more sounds out of him.

Then he grinds his hips into her, steady, deft fingers moving to push her jacket off one shoulder and start at the buttons of her shirt. He’s already rock hard underneath those jeans. Rook breaks the kiss, just for a moment.

“Wait—here? What if someone drives by? What if more rebels get here?”

Jacob Seed is a cold, calculating strategist. Being vulnerable like this, out in the open probably isn’t a great idea. He dips down to kiss a spot along her jaw, then fucking _purrs_ against her. “Let ‘em see.”

Well, who’s Rook to counter that well-said point?

Her shirt’s completely undone, and Jacob breaks away from her face to trail kisses down her chest, down from the top of her _WRATH_ tattoo and lingering right above the joint of her bra, tongue darting out between her breasts. A moan escapes Rook, and she drags her hands up his torso, pulling up the hem of his shirt and jacket.

Then he’s pulling back, kneeling up, hunched so he doesn’t bump his head on the low ceiling of the car, and starts to shuck off his jacket, dog tags swaying in the air. Rook sits up as well, following the motion. She throws her jacket off much faster than him, though he _is_ wearing his military fatigue jacket underneath so he’s got that extra layer slowing the undressing process.

While he does that, she leans down, sinking off the seat slightly to lower herself, and unbuckles his belt. In seconds she’s opened his jeans, cock springing free, because, y’know, _commando_. She hears a sharp intake of breath from him as she takes him in one hand, stroking up and down slowly. Rook sinks down some more, watching precum bead out of the tip as she leans down.

Her lips merely graze against the head of his cock before two hands hook under her arms and pull her up. Jacob urges her back down against the seats, responding to her quizzical look with a peck on the lips before he breaks away again to unbuckle her belt.

“Hey, it’s fine,” she says, reaching up to brush her hand along his cheek, feeling all the little soft bumps and craters in his skin. “I haven’t gotten more condoms from Addie yet, I can just blow you for now.”

He unzips her jeans a little more forcefully than needed, eyeing her with a no-nonsense look under his furrowed brows. “Wanna feel you.”

“Are you—”

“I wanna _feel you_ ,” he says again, more firmly this time. He takes the hand that’s on his face, drags her palm down slightly and presses his lips into it.

They’ve been careful, they’re always careful, so she just nods, feeling her heart beat faster. She trusts him.

And then he’s leaning down to kiss her again, engulfing her in his warmth, hands pawing beneath her undone shirt and rubbing circles into her hips with the pads of this thumbs. Rook sighs into his open mouth, snaking her hands underneath his t-shirt, combing her fingers through soft fuzz and tracing scars.

She shudders when his hand grazes over the scars of her bullet wounds, burning his touch into the raised skin, spreading warmth into her abdomen. She sinks her teeth into his bottom lip, sucking gently, enjoying the needy, desperate sounds she can get out of Jacob _fucking_ Seed. Then she lets go, parting her lips with a soft gasp. His hand has slipped beneath her underwear, trailing down down down to stroke at her wet folds.

She spreads her legs wider, hooking her ankles over the back of Jacob’s legs the best she can with her jeans hindering her. She rocks her hips into his hand, the pace of her breath picking up. Jacob’s cockhead drags wetly along her thigh, so fucking hard. She reaches down to tend to it, she doesn’t want to leave him neglected while he’s got two fingers prodding at her cunt.

“Don’t,” he breathes, his hand suddenly _gone_ from between her legs and locking around her wrist, fingers wet with her, dragging her hand away from him and pining it up next to her head. “Don’t worry about me. I got—it’s under _control_.”

“Yes, sir.” She laughs quietly at the strain in his voice. Now at _that_ , his eyes get even more blown out than before. She ceases her laughing and shoots him a stern look. “Don’t get used to that.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he smirks, watching her hard expression melt when he slips his fingers between her again. Rook shuts her eyes, writhing under his touch. He sighs, breath fanning across her face. “Always so wet for me, aren’t ya? C’mon sweetheart, open your eyes, lemme see your eyes.”

She bunches a hand in the hem of his shirt and opens her eyes, gasping again when touches her clit. The smirk on his face grows sharper, wolvish, and she leans up to kiss it right off his face.

“Come on, Jacob, come on,” Rook urges, digging her nails into his bicep. She falters when he dips his fingers back inside her, scissoring. “Fuck, _please_ , get on with it.”

“Hm, so impatient,” he tuts, but there’s a renewed hunger to his voice, eyes getting darker at her pleading. He removes his fingers, which gets him another whine from her, and then slowly, almost _cautiously_ , he angles his cock into her, just grazing her entrance.

She makes an embarrassing, distressed sound and grabs his hips, pulling him closer to her. _“Jacob.”_

At that, he finally prods into her, slowly at first, and Rook gasps at the stretch. Then with an almost wounded, _weakened_ groan, he sinks in down to the hilt. Rook moans loud, a lewd sound that can probably be heard from the outside of the car with that hole in the window.

He starts thrusting into her, slow at first, rhythmic, then steadily picks up the pace. He nips at her neck as he fucks her into the seat, muttering under his breath every time Rook drags her nails down his arms, his back. Trailing red lines into his skin, from pleasure, just shy from drawing actual blood.

It takes Rook a while to actually hear him, to _process_ what he’s saying, just the fucking force of Jacob big dick Seed rendering her thoughts useless. But her inhibitions finally catch up to her after the initial first few plunges of him.

“Fuck, baby, y’feel so fuckin’ good around me,” he says low and breathy in between thrusts. “Fucking addictive, you are.”

Rook has nothing intelligent to say, and the sound of his voice in her ear just brings her closer to the edge. He tangles one of his hands in her hair, wrapping around the back of her head and pulling just the right amount. Rook’s caught between moans of random words tumbling out of her mouth—words that just spur him on, driving into her harder and faster, words like _fuck, harder, yes,_ and _jacob, jacob, jacob_.

“You want me, sweetheart?” He murmurs against her lips, his beard and breath tickling her face. “You’re fucking dripping for me.”

Rook wants to say something smart in return, wants to tell him _you’re already in me what the fuck do you think_ , but all that comes out is, “Yes, _yes_ , fuck. Want you—I’m close, _I’m so close.”_

“Perfect,” he purrs, and then fucking _stops_.

“What—what the fuck?”

“Aw, sorry baby,” he rumbles, a fucking smarmy expression on his face, and starts rolling his hips again. A whine escapes her, feeling the build-up of pleasure sustain, coiling low in her belly.

“Mm faster, Jacob. I’m gonna—you _asshole_.” He stopped _again_.

“You wanna come, Deputy?”

She growls and thrusts her hips into him with each word, holding back her own moans as she moves with him inside her, taking the small victory of watching his smug resolve twitch. “What—the _fuck_ —do you—think— _baby?”_

A wild, uncontained noise of frustration reverberates in his throat. He grabs her hips hard, holding them still. “Lemme hear you say it first, Dep, I wanna hear it.”

He’s literally _inside_ her, hanging on the edge just as she is judging by the tremor wreaking his hands, and he’s playing fucking _mind games_. Rook makes an incredulous sound, trying to keep moving despite the vice grip he has on her hips. “Hear _what?”_

“What you said before,” he whispers fierce, his nose bumping hers, “say it again.”

It takes a second for it to click in her head. “You—I poured my heart out to you, you bastard, and you _won’t let me come?”_

She throws an arm over her face in disbelief and embarrassment, trying to somehow hide. His hand is gentle when it wraps around her wrist, moving it away so he can continue peering closely at her face with a heady fascination.

“C’mon, tell me you love me.” There’s a strain to his voice now, he wants release just as bad as she does. “Say it—say it again and maybe I’ll let you come.”

Despite how much she doesn’t want to, just to let him suffer, she wants it so, so bad. Every part of her is so sensitive now, fucking screaming for release. With a huff, she grabs his face, tangles her fingers in his beard and steadies him against her. Those blue, blue eyes so dark and she could fall right into them. “I _love_ you, asshole. I fucking love you, now stop torturing us.”

She doesn’t need him to say it back. She needs him to keep _fucking_ her.

He inhales sharply, she can feel his skin heating up at her declaration. “Ah, there it is.”

Fucking _smug,_ breathy, and satisfied, but she can see the tips of his ears going pink, the skin of his neck flushing. The closest she’s ever gonna get to seeing Jacob Seed _blush_.

He lets go of her hips, picking up the pace again with his undulating. The car seats creak under the force of the pace, but Rook can barely hear the sound over her own moans. One of his hands come around her neck, cradling the base of her skull as he marks up her neck with his lips and teeth.

“Tell me again,” he pants into her neck, and Rook’s sure the skin at her collarbones and neck is gonna be an angry red later from how his beard is rubbing into her. He says her name, once, twice, three times—chants it like a prayer as he angles himself to thrust into just the right spot, his other hand drifting down to toy with her clit. “Tell me again, sweetheart, tell me while you come around my cock.”

It’s all so much, too much, that Rook sees white, she can’t tell if she’s forming the words as she falls apart. She goes boneless as she comes, mewling out _i love you’_ s the best she can.

“Fuck, yes, you, always you.” Jacob starts ramping up the pace even more, sweat dripping down his neck as he chases after her release. He’s careful—Rook doesn’t even know how he can always be in enough control to _think_ properly when they’re fucking—and in her hazy, fucked out thoughts she’s grateful when he pulls out of her.

“ _Only you,_ ” she breathes with a small smile, locking eyes with him as she takes hold of his cock. She’s wiped out, but she uses all the strength she has left to stroke him fast, his cock slick with her come.

“I love you.” He plants a sloppy, desperate kiss against her lips, murmuring against her. “You, _only you_.”

He coils up and bats her hand away, taking her wrist and pinning her hand up against the car door. With a grunt, he shifts enough to the side that he doesn’t come all over her, but spills somewhere onto the car floor. _Fuck, my jacket’s somewhere down there_.

When he’s spent, he collapses onto Rook, knocking the breath out of her. They lay there for a few heartbeats, just breathing, waiting for their inhibitions to kick in again. His shirt is thoroughly sweaty, warm and comfortable against her bare belly, rubbing up against her bra. Jacob’s face is pressed against the top of hers, every breath breezing into her hair.

The air in the car is heavy and hot, the windows have even fogged up.

Rook breaks the silence first. “Didn’t think you were gonna say it back. Didn’t _expect_ you to.”

His reply is hoarse. “Wanted to.”

She hums thoughtfully at that, just breathing in his scent.

“We should probably get moving,” he says, but doesn’t do anything else but bury his face further into her hair. She wonders if the dried cultist blood caking some locks of hair together bothers him, but then she remembers this is _Jacob_.

“Yeah, we should.” She trails her hand down his arm, traces through the angry red scars that adorn his skin. “I have to go see the Whitetails. And I think you might have ruined my jacket.”

He snorts. “You can take mine.”

“God, they’ll glare at me even _more_ if I show up in your clothes.”

“That’s a damn shame, 'cause you look like heaven in my clothes.”

“Jesus, I didn’t know you could be this sappy,” Rook grimaces, but feels her face flush all the same. “I should say shit like that _less_ if this is what you’re like after an _I love you_.”

Jacob locks an arm around her waist and flips them so that it’s Jacob on the seat and Rook resting atop him now, her head tucked into the crook of his neck. “Tough shit, you’re gonna be putting up with this for the next seven years, Deputy.”

Rook twists, looking up at him. She squints. “Not any longer than that?”

His expression turns serious, cold eyes sharp and sure. “‘Till I’m in the fucking ground.”

Rook can’t help the smile that grows on her face. Yeah, they’re gonna be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S DONE
> 
> also if anyone's interested, i've totally been thinking about [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jTkwq8QAtI) as the end credits song to the fic, i listen to this song constantly just thinking of rook/jacob lmao
> 
> thank you thank you so much for riding through this fic with me!! i'm forever grateful and live off of all of your comments and kudos. <3 i definitely couldn't have gotten this far, let alone finished this fic without your support, so thank you.
> 
> i hope you all enjoyed the ending, i decided to leave it fairly open in terms of when and how the collapse goes off. and sorry if the ending wasn't too realistic or anything, i tried to tie things up while keeping a happy ending, because my goal at the beginning of this goddamn fic was a fucking fix-it for canon anyway! nobody dies (edit: except burke, oops)! yay!
> 
> i'd love to hear yall's thoughts/questions/feelings in the comments, if not you guys can just hit me up on [tumblr](https://lowtldes.tumblr.com/) as well
> 
> i've said this a million times now but thank you <3


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